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The news was first reported by Yahoo Finance, which claims that it has interviewed several people “familiar with the matter”. One of the sources told Yahoo that the e-commerce giant is working on turning Alexa into “a context-savvy, real-time universal language translator.”
Alexa is already capable of translating short terms and phrases from Spanish, German, Italian, French, and English into native languages. However, Amazon thinks that it is not enough.
Yahoo found that Alexa could soon help a native English speaker attending a meeting with Japanese business partners understand what those people are saying in Japanese. The smart voice-based assistant will reportedly integrate its knowledge of the Japanese culture to make the translations more accurate.
Alexa Getting Better at Translations
Sources claim that the new feature will be readily accessible to all users from any device. Amazon also plans to instruct Alexa to translate conversations between people that are from different countries and are speaking simultaneously to one another.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the project will be successful or not. Amazon couldn’t be reached for a request for comment on the revelations.
Amazon is not the only major tech company that seeks to beef up the translation capabilities of its products. In 2017, Google boasted that the Pixel Buds ($159 ) were able to perform accurate real-time translation on the go, but the feature was not well received.
Users said at the time that the experience of Google Translate in a wireless earphone was “awkward” so they would rather use their smartphones for any translation needs since those devices are a more compelling solution.
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