Alexa Presentation Language Released

Has been around now for a year,  worth looking at as to how capabilities that link voice, text and animation can be constructed.  Still need more ways to sweeten the actual intelligence provided.  Worth an examination as to the approach Amazon is using.

Alexa Presentation Language Now Generally Available: Build Multimodal Experiences that Come Alive with Animation
Arunjeet Singh

Today we are excited to announce that Alexa Presentation Language (APL) is generally available. APL enables you to easily create visually rich Alexa skills for devices with screens and to adapt them for different device types such as the Echo Show, Echo Spot, Fire TV, LG TVs, and the Lenovo Smart Tab. Adding visuals and touch can enhance voice experiences and make skills more engaging and interactive for customers. With the general availability of APL, we addressed key known issues you raised to enable specific use cases and addressed feedback from the public beta.

We believe that the emergence of voice user interfaces isn’t an incremental improvement to existing technology; it marks a significant shift in human-computer interaction. That’s why APL is designed from the ground up for creating voice-first, multimodal Alexa skills.

Over the past year, we have launched many different tools and resources to help you build skills that include text, graphics, slideshows, animation, and video content. There are thousands of multimodal skills across different categories. For example, the winner of the Alexa Multimodal Challenge, Stuart Pocklington, created Loop It, a skill that lets you choose from a variety of audio loops to create your own track. The skill makes use of TouchWrappers to allow users to navigate by touching the screen. Customers can see images for the sun, clouds, and other conditions when interacting with Big Sky, a skill that uses APL’s ability to adapt content to adjust layout and information density based on the device display size.

As APL approaches its 1st birthday, we want to highlight some important benefits, tools and features you should be aware of so that you can build rich, interactive skills. .... "