In this chalk, you gain hands-on experience with a number of development concepts involved in building enterprise-grade, voice-enablement solutions using Alexa for Business and Amazon Lex. You also learn best practices in architecting and securing Alexa and Amazon Lex solutions in enterprise environments. This is an advanced, technical, hands-on lab for developers with basic knowledge of AWS Lambda.

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Developing Enterprise Voice Solutions
with Alexa for Business & Amazon Lex
Sam Eniojukan
Partner Solutions Architect, Alexa for Business
Amazon Web Services
B A P 3 2 1

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Agenda
Platforms overview
Alexa, Lex, Alexa for Business
How we built it: Q&A bot
Use case & architecture
Key design decisions
Alexa skill & Lex bot
Lambda & shared backend
Alexa for Business
Key takeaways

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Amazon Alexa voice platform
Alexa Skills
Kit
Alexa Voice
Service
Create custom
skills for
consumer and
enterprise use
cases
Embed Alexa in
hardware and
software products

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Alexa for Business—Enterprise platform
Alexa
For
Business
Device
management
platform
Conferencing
& meeting
management
Mass
provisioning
Private skills
store
Shared
device
BYOD
“Alexa, join
my meeting”
Conference
providers

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Text and speech language understanding:
powered by the same technology as Alexa
Enterprise ready: connect to enterprise
systems via SaaS connectors
Build once and deploy to multiple
platforms
Designed for builders, efficient tools to
build conversations; scales automatically
Amazon LEX—Conversational bot platform
Continuous learning: monitor and
improve your bot
Informational bots
Chatbots for everyday consumer requests
Application bots
Build powerful interfaces to mobile
applications
Enterprise productivity bots
Streamline enterprise work activities and
improve efficiencies
Internet of Things (IoT) bots
Enable conversational interfaces for device
interactions
Common bot use cases

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Amazon Alexa & LEX usage scenarios
• Alexa skill only
• Voice only, 1P Alexa skills, 50,000+ 3P skills
• Channels—Echo devices, AVS embedded solutions
• LEX bot only
• ChatBot, Web, SMS, Mobile
• Custom branding, invocation control
• Alexa + LEX solution
• Bot-of-bot arrangement
• Leverage both platforms for versatility

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Q&A bot design
Key concepts
• Design Alexa intents to pass
questions into slots
• Use Lex as a sub-bot to
process actual Q&A
questions from Alexa slots
• Use Elasticsearch to enable
fast full-text search of
knowledgebase
Sample architecture

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Key design & architecture decisions
• Overall architecture
• Bot of bots approach
• Question matching – intent based/search based
• Security & data protection
• Account linking to skill
• Two-factor voice Pin via SMS/email
• Identity provider
• Shared backend service
• Enterprise platform
• AWS Service

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Lambda & shared backend
Lambda
Implemented separate lambda function for Lex & Alexa
Maintain similar architecture and reuse libraries & common code
Shared backend
Leveraged Elasticsearch for full text search of Q&A content
Enhancement Opportunity – implementations could use API to external
service with content

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© 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Alexa for Business
Private skill
Deploy Alexa Q&A skill as private skill restricted to
organization
Shared devices
Use on shared devices in conference rooms or common areas
Enhancement opportunity
Leverage ResolveRoom API to identify location & serve up
location relevant content

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Key takeaways
• When to use Alexa or LEX
• How to leverage both Alexa & LEX in a solution
• Key considerations in designing such solutions
• Example solution leveraging both Lex & Alexa

13. Thank you!
© 2018, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Sam Eniojukan
eniojuka@amazon.com

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