Despite challenges from Google, Amazon’s Alexa voice-controlled AI assistant and the Echo-series devices it uses as a host have managed to ensnare…
Despite challenges from Google, Amazon’s Alexa voice-controlled AI assistant and the Echo-series devices it uses as a host have managed to ensnare the lion’s share of users. Amazon has so completely smothered the home voice AI market that Microsoft has even announced plans a while back to team with the e-tailer company. Over the last year we’ve seen smartphone makers add Alexa to their handsets, and now Asus has joined Acer in announcing that the voice bot is coming to 2018 models of its notebook PC lineups.
Asus wasn’t ready to name any specific models with Alexa just yet, but the company did say it would annouce VivoBook and ZenBook laptops with Alexa integration in the first half of 2018. The manufacturer’s announcement was light on details, but we suspect future Alexa models will sport the multi-microphone arrays that have become common on high-end laptops over the last few months.
We don’t know whether Alexa support will be included from the get-go or if it’ll be added after the new models have already been on the market. The Alexa integration on Asus laptops will vary by region, so gerbils in countries without Alexa support probably shouldn’t get too excited just yet.
