Alexa is the speech processing and personal assistant technology behind Amazon Echo. Speech-based user interfaces represent one of the next major disruptions in computing and the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) provides you with an opportunity to take advantage of this new form of interaction.  In this session, we’ll walk through the recently-released AVS API by building a voice-enabled application and then go behind the scenes with Alexa, diving into the architecture and unique technical challenges faced during development.

1. © 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Donn Morrill - Sr. Manager, Solutions Architecture, Amazon Alexa
Frederic Deramat - Sr. Principal Engineer, Amazon Alexa
Stephen Chien – Senior Advanced Technology Engineer, BMW
October 2015
MBL310
Alexa Voice Service
Under the Hood

2. Agenda
• Echo demo
• What is AVS?
• AVS walkthrough
• AVS tips and tricks
• Alexa under the hood
• Alexa in action - BMW

3. Echo demo

4. What is ASK?
The Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) is a
collection of self-service APIs,
tools, documentation, and code
samples that make it fast and
easy for you to add skills to
Alexa. Using ASK, you can teach
new skills to Alexa in just a few
hours.

5. Alexa companion app
• Register a device
• View and manage actions
• Link third-party accounts
• View lists
• And much more

6. What is AVS?

7. Registration and authentication

8. Basic AVS request
1) Create an HTTP request
2) Collect the audio and send the request
• Use “Transfer-Encoding: Chunked” for streaming the request or
set “Content-Length” for sending prerecorded audio
• Avoid storing the audio
3) Parse the response
4) Handle each directive

9. Basic AVS request: Write HTTP headers
POST /v1/avs/speechrecognizer/recognize HTTP/1.1
Host: access-alexa-na.amazon.com
Authorization: Bearer {ACCESS TOKEN}  From auth flow
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary={BOUNDARY TERM}
Transfer-Encoding: chunked OR Content-Length: {LENGTH}

10. Basic AVS request: Send the audio
--{BOUNDARY TERM}
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="request"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
"messageBody": {
"profile": "alexa-close-talk",  Speech model
"locale": "en-us",
"format": "audio/L16; rate=16000; channels=1"
}
--{BOUNDARY TERM}
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="audio"
Content-Type: audio/L16; rate=16000; channels=1
{ENCODED AUDIO}  16 bit linear PCM at 16 kHz

11. Basic AVS request: Parse the response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary={BOUNDARY TERM}
--{BOUNDARY TERM}
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
{ "messageHeader": {},
"messageBody": {
"directives": [ {
"namespace": “{AudioPlayer | SpeechSynthesizer}",
"name": “{DIRECTIVE}",
"payload" : {
--{BOUNDARY TERM}
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="audio"
Content-Type: audio/mpeg
Content-ID: {CONTENT ID}
{ENCODED AUDIO DATA}  If directive is speak, play this back to the user

12. AVS response directives
Directive Meaning
clearQueue Clear the playback queue
listen Multi-turn interaction - listen for more audio
play Play a streaming URL
speak Speak the Alexa response to the user
stop Stop streaming playback

13. Streaming events
Event Meaning
metadataAvailable Metadata associated with the selection in the
audio player
playbackError Audio player has experienced an issue during
playback
playbackFinished Audio player has completed playback
playbackIdle Audio player has reached the end of the
playlist
playbackInterrupted Audio player has been interrupted
playbackProgressReport Current state of the audio player
playbackStarted Audio player has started playing

14. Alexa platform

15. AVS interfaces
Interface Directives Events
SpeechRecognizer onSpeech
onTimeout
SpeechSynthesizer speak
ask
AudioPlayer play
stop
onPlaybackStarted
onPlaybackFinished
onPlaybackNearlyFinished
Speaker setVolume onVolumeChange

16. SpeechRecognizer

17. Connected Home

18. AudioPlayer

19. One-to-many interfaces

20. Close-talk vs. far-field
Protocol
Client
Components
HTTP REST HTTP REST Bidirectional async
Endpointer Communications Communications
Beamforming
Echo cancellation
Wakeword
Bidirectional async
1 2 3 4

21. Endpoint and protocol independence

22. AVS best practices
• Stream
• Decouple up and down channels
• Decouple protocol
• Adopt event-driven patterns

23. AVS under the hood

24. Under the hood: SLU

25. Skill orchestration

26. Skill orchestration: Focus & Context

27. Skill orchestration

28. Skill orchestration: Connected Home

29. Continuous improvement: Offline

30. Continuous improvement: Online

31. Continuous improvement: Online

32. Continuous improvement: Online

33. SMART AGENTS FOR BMW DRIVERS.
BMW Group Technology Office USA.
Stephen Chien

34. THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY WILL UNDERGO
MASSIVE CHANGES IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS.
SUSTAINABILITY DIGITALIZATION
CARS ARE POWERED BY
ELECTRICITY
CO2 SUSTAINABILITY HAS
GAINED GREATER SIGNIFICANCE
VEHICLES ARE DRIVING ALMOST
ACCIDENT-FREE
MOBILITY CONCEPTS LIKE CAR-
SHARING ARE WIDELY AVAILABLE
VEHICLES BECOME PART OF
THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACES
BECOME MORE INTUITIVE

35. BMW i – THE NEXT GENERATION OF A CONNECTED
CAR.
Wearable
Integration
Smart TV
Integration
Smartphone
Integration

36. PERSONAL SMART AGENTS FOR BMW DRIVERS.
• Smart agents are everywhere
in life.
• Natural way to interact with
your vehicle.
• Easy for users to understand
and use.
• A smart agent that knows
about you and your vehicle.

37. PROTOTYPING AN ALEXA SKILL FOR BMW i.
Leveraging Amazon’s developer
platform.
• Built on AWS technology.
• ASK and AVS provide a seamless
user experience.
• ASK and AVS provide open
platforms.
BMW skill features.
• Request vehicle status through
Alexa.
• Execute vehicle commands
through Alexa.

38. BMW i SKILL DEMO.

39. Thank you!
Drawing winners announced:
http://bit.ly/appstoregiveaway

40. Remember to complete
your evaluations!