Alibaba expands its smart speakers beyond the home as it takes on Amazon Echo

While Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri are fighting for dominance in the household market for voice activated assistants, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group wants to grow the footprint of its smart speakers beyond the home.

The Hangzhou-based company will focus its voice-activated solutions on enabling the retail, hotel and air travel industries to better serve customers in “hands free” mode, according to Alibaba AI Labs, the developer of the Tmall Genie smart speaker.

“This is the beginning of a new era. Powered by artificial intelligence, many things can be done by using your mouth, ears and eyes,” Chen Lijuan, general manager of Alibaba AI Labs, told the South China Morning Post on the sidelines of the recent Alibaba Computing Conference.

Answering to Tianmao Jingling, the mandarin pronunciation of Tmall Genie, the speaker debuted in the China market in July, offering services similar to a real butler. Working in a similar fashion to Amazon Echo, it can switch on your television, read the children a story, and order takeaway food via voice request.

By encouraging the adoption of the speakers in hotel rooms, supermarkets and airports – and offering customised services such as answering shoppers’ questions like “where to find the shampoo” in store – Tmall Genie is expected to achieve higher sales.

In late September, AI Labs announced plans to equip 100,000 hotel rooms with the speaker, starting with those owned by Marriott International, which recently set up a joint venture with Alibaba.