Alexa! ?Quién es el mejor?

Amazon’s Alexa recently became bilingual! With the new mode, Alexa and Echo devices now switch easily between English and Spanish - almost a necessity when considering an estimated 41 million US residents speak Spanish at home. 

This feature is a great illustration of the nation’s changing communities, and while large percentages of Spanish speakers also speak English “well” (a reported 6.8 million) or “very well” (a reported 22.5 million), there are times that switching back and forth is helpful or even essential for a user. 

For example, a potential credit union member may speak English well, but may feel more comfortable doing research on loan rates in Spanish as they’re making more complex decisions. For this user, toggling back and forth between Spanish and English on a website may be exactly what they need to make sure there is no language barrier.

What else can we learn about the new bilingual feature? It signals the huge growth in the market and demand for the voice activated search devices. Voice search allows users to speak their search questions rather than typing and is expected to soon be 50% of the global search market. 

Combined, multilingual capabilities and voice search are probably two of the hottest trends moving into 2020 and beyond - and now is definitely the time to move forward with both. And if you need help with either, enable the OMNIPORTAL skill for Alexa, then just ask Alexa “who’s the best web designer?”