Amazon and Hyundai Partner for Built-in Alexa in Hyundai Vehicles, Amazon To Sell Hyundai Vehicles Online from Next Year

• Amazon to launch online vehicle sales in the U.S., starting with Hyundai in 2024, making it more convenient for customers to find and buy their vehicle of choice on Amazon.com and pick it up from their local dealer
• Hyundai names AWS as its preferred cloud provider to help facilitate digital transformation of the automaker’s operations, production, and customer service
• Amazon and Hyundai to bring the Alexa Built-in experience to Hyundai’s next-generation vehicles

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Hyundai Motor Company announced a broad strategic partnership to bring innovative new experiences to customers. The announcement was made today at the 2023 Los Angeles Auto Show and a livestream can be viewed here. This strategic collaboration includes Amazon launching online sales of Hyundai vehicles in the U.S. in 2024, Hyundai naming AWS as its preferred cloud provider to help facilitate digital transformation, and the Alexa Built-in experience coming to Hyundai’s next-generation vehicles.

“Hyundai is a very innovative company that shares Amazon’s passion for trying to make customers’ lives better and easier every day,” said Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. “Our broad, strategic partnership should do just that, from changing the ease with which customers can buy vehicles online, to making it simple to use Alexa in Hyundai vehicles for entertainment, shopping, smart home adjustments, and calendar checks, to enabling Hyundai to transform their customer experiences and business operations by moving to AWS. We look forward to inventing together for many years.”

“Partnering with one of the world’s most customer-centric organizations unlocks incredible opportunities as we continue to expand our portfolio, grow our sales network, transition to electrification and realize the future of smart mobility,” said President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company Jaehoon (Jay) Chang. “Amazon is the ideal partner to help realize our vision of progress for humanity, including improving how people and goods move more efficiently and sustainably. Hyundai is the first automotive company available for full end-to-end transactions in Amazon’s U.S. store and this is another example of how we continue to push for ways to elevate the customer journey together with our outstanding retail partners.”

India’s Biggest Parenting Platform, MomJunction to Rekindle the Art of Storytelling with Amazon Alexa

MomJunction, India's largest parenting website, announced that its collection of stories for children will now be available for parents to access across the country via Amazon Alexa. With this added feature, MomJunction hopes to rekindle the art of storytelling in the contemporary world and inspire children to dive into the world of magic, wonder, and imagination through stories in vernacular languages. These stories are exclusively available in Hindi and will be available in English soon.

Currently, stories available on the platform include folktales related to animals and popular historical characters like Birbal and Tenali Raman. To get started in any Alexa-enabled device, one can ask by saying- "Alexa, lion ki story sunaiye", "Alexa, chuhe aur billi ki kahani sunaiye", "Alexa, sleeping beauty ki story sunaiye", "Alexa, Tenali Raman ki kahani sunaiye" etc.

Momjunction powered stories are available in Hindi on all Alexa-enabled devices and on the free Alexa app for smartphones.

The idea behind these stories is to promote and stimulate imagination, creativity, helping build vocabulary and instill a sense of magic in kids. The mental adaptations of the characters from the online storytelling sessions will help a child boost their creative skills. This will also provide an alternate option for parents to dispense an outlet to reduce screen time for children who are grappling with homeschooling and isolation. These stories will be for children across all age groups, from Kindergarten to 12th grade.

Ms. Natasha Garyali, VP, Business Development & Strategic Partnerships at MomJunction, said, "Listening to stories on Alexa can be immersive, educational, instructional, as well as entertaining. Our selection of stories is thought-provoking and stimulates a child's imagination. Besides imparting knowledge, they also rekindle the spirit of reading among modern-day children, helping them focus and enhance their concentration abilities. We aim to make stories by MomJunction available across diverse topics to encourage the art of listening among children."

About MomJunction

MomJunction is India's largest parenting website that serves and guides a close-knit community of 20-million first-time millennials moms. Operated and led by moms, MomJunction consists of expert editors, and a panel of domestic & international doctors who help in creating verified and medically reviewed information around pregnancy and parenting helping new parents navigate their incredible journey with confidence. IncNut, MomJunction's parent company, raised $4M funding Series A Funding led by RPSG Ventures in 2020. The company earlier secured a seed funding of INR fifty lakh from Venture East early in 2013 which was acquired by Japanese conglomerate brand, Istyle in 2018 for twenty-eight crores.

L&T Technology Services Selected as a Consulting and Professional Services Provider for Amazon to Support Alexa Integration in Devices

L&T Technology Services Limited (BSE: 540115, NSE: LTTS), a leading global pure-play engineering services company, today announced that it has been selected as a Consulting and Professional Services (CPS) provider to support Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) integration in various connected devices spanning multiple domains and industries.
 
Alexa, the Amazon cloud-based voice service, is available on devices from both Amazon and third-party manufacturers and powers connected devices. AVS also manages the services and infrastructure required for Alexa experiences on Alexa built-in devices, and provides a suite of device APIs, SDKs, hardware kits, and documentation to enterprises across the world.
 
As technology revolutionizes every aspect of human life, products too have become more complex and smart with a combination of hardware, sensors, data storage, microprocessors, software, and connectivity. To ideate new voice activated products and expand the availability of voice recognition service across consumer and industrial digital appliances, LTTS in its capacity as an AVS Consulting and Professional Services provider, will deliver scale in capabilities, skills and capacity, access to new markets and specialization in technology and vertical domains for global enterprises, end-consumers and technology principals.
 
With decades of expertise in Embedded HW, Mechanical Design Services, Proto Manufacturing Support, Platform Software, Multimedia (Audio & Speech) and Product Testing Services, LTTS is well-equipped to provide consulting and professional services across an organization’s product portfolio and domains.
 
“We are delighted to see LTTS use their expertise in the consumer and industrial market, product development, device testing and certification, and innovation to transform their clients’ customer experience,” said Eric King, General Manager, Amazon Alexa Europe. “We welcome LTTS as our newest Alexa Voice Service Consulting and Professional Services provider and look forward to see them apply their capabilities to develop innovative voice solutions for enterprises, global device makers and brands”.
 
Seema Ghanekar, Global Head - Industrial & Consumer Products, L&T Technology Services said, “With the growing demand for digital voice recognition-enabled devices, the technological disruptions brought about by engineering services in the embedded devices space are ever rising. In fact, the suggested approach is to engineer experiences for end-users rather than the gadgets. With expertise in industrial market, product development, device testing and certification, LTTS is well-equipped to become a provider of choice for software integration for Amazon Alexa products. Our work with Amazon for AVS is a step in this direction as together we look towards driving new-age customer experience engineering benchmarks.”