With Alexa for Business, you can deploy and manage Alexa devices in your organization. Join us in this session to learn how you can set up an Alexa-enabled conference room and integrate Alexa with your existing equipment. Learn to build Alexa skills, and voice-enable applications such as SalesForce, ServiceNow and Trello. Discover how to build private skills for your organization and deploy them to Alexa devices and users in your workplace. Come and experience Alexa for Business in action, and get some great ideas for transforming your business.

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Milo Oostergo
Principal Product Manager, Amazon Web Services
Sunitha Srivatsa
Software Development Engineer, Amazon Web Services
ENT306
Can I bring Alexa to work?

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Agenda
• Introduction to Alexa for Business
• Setting up your Alexa-enabled meeting room
• Beyond conference rooms
• Building private skills for your internal applications

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Why Voice?

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abc
GUI
Web
VUI
Character
mode
Mobile
1980s 1990s 2000s PRESENT1970s

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We believe voice represents the
next major disruption in computing

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A Day in the Life with Alexa as your
Professional Digital Assistant

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“Alexa, What’s my Flash Briefing?”

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“Alexa, What’s on my Calendar?”

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“Alexa, move ‘Sync Milo - Sunitha’ to
tomorrow at 9 a.m.”

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“Alexa, get my sales report from
Salesforce”

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“Alexa, get information on Acme
Corporation from Salesforce”

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“Alexa, join the meeting.”

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“Alexa, schedule a meeting with Eric.”

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“Alexa, add ‘thank the team for the demo
setup’ to my to-do list.

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Where do I start?
?

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Alexa for Business
Introducing
Yo u r i n t e l l i g e n t a s s i s t a n t f o r w o r k

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Voice enable the workplace with Alexa
Simplifies your
conference rooms
Helps you around the
workplace
Helps you at your desk

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Different deployment models
• Shared devices: Deploy Alexa-enabled devices to shared
locations, such as conference rooms, common areas, etc.
• Enrolled users: Enable users to enroll their Alexa account with
Alexa for Business to get access to private skills, conferencing
capabilities, and calendar.

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Deploying Alexa at scale is challenging
Setting up one Amazon
Echo device is easy, but
setting up many becomes
challenging.
Provisioning of Devices
In order to ensure devices
are functioning as
intended, it’s critical to
have central visibility and
control.
Central Management
Sensitive information is
commonplace and it’s
important that employee
and company privacy be
protected.
Privacy & Security

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Alexa for Business admin controls
• Manage thousands of Shared Devices and Users from the AWS
Management Console.
• Monitor and Configure Alerts
• Deploy Private Skills available only to your organization
• Connect to Internal Systems

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Alexa for Business admin controls
Security and Privacy:
• Enable/Disable Skills
• Enable/Disable Alexa Calling
• Control Contact Lists
• Delete Utterance History

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Alexa in Conference Rooms

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Lost productivity
• Industry average for meeting startup time: 7 minutes
• Conference rooms have different configurations and controllers so users must relearn
how to use them.
• Utilization and ROI on existing conferencing and audio/visual hardware and software is
low.

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Nice picture

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Joining a meeting with Cisco

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Alexa,
start my
meeting
Alexa for
Business
conference
service
Alexa for
Business
Gateway
Alexa Service
Cisco
Telepresence
system Cloud
Local
network
Ok, joining your meeting
1
2
3
4
567
8
Controlling Cisco appliances

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Works with popular conferencing equipment
• Cisco Telepresence SX, DX, MX
• Cisco Spark Room Kit
• Crestron 3-Series control systems
• Polycom Group Series (beta)
• Zoom Rooms

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Alexa,
start my
meeting
Alexa for
Business
conference
service
Custom Skill
Alexa Service
Custom Video
Conferencing
equipment Cloud
Ok, joining your
meeting
1
2
4
56
7
Controlling custom VC equipment

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How can I set it up?

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A lexa is a p owerfu l c on versation al p latform.
Bey on d c on feren c e rooms, wh ere else c an I u se A lexa in
th e en terp rise ?

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40,000+ skills

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... and a Growing Number of Partners are Building Alexa
Skills for the Workplace

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Private skills
Build it the same way as Public Skills
Private Skills: Keep Your Skills to Your Organizations
Build with Alexa Skills Kit. Publish to your organizations.

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How are enterprises using private skills?

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WeWork
Meeting Room Booking (WeOS)
FIND AN AVAILABLE MEETING ROOM
“Alexa, ask WeWork to find an
available conference room.”
WHEN THE NEXT MEETING WILL START
“Alexa, ask WeWork when the
next meeting will start.”
EXTEND THE CURRENT MEETING
“Alexa, ask WeWork to extend this
meeting.”

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WeWork
Community Support (Zendesk)
FILE A TICKET WITH COMMUNITY
“Alexa, tell WeWork to file a
ticket.”
“…the room's lighting.”
“…the room is freezing.
“…the room is too warm.”
“…the television isn't working.”
“…the phone is broken.”

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General Electric
Bangor Tool Crib Skill
FIND A PART IN WAREHOUSE
“Alexa, I’m looking for
{partName}”
GET INVENTORY COUNT
“Alexa, current inventory count for
{partName}”

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How do you get started?

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Alexa Skills Kit
A collection of APIs and tools that enable developers to quickly and
easily, build capabilities and voice experiences for customers with
Alexa.

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Request
Audio
Response
Your Service
Text to Speech
Machine Learning
Natural Language
Understanding
Speech Recognition
Cards
Alexa Skills Kit

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Wake word
detection
Beam forming
Cards
Your Service
Text to Speech
Machine Learning
Natural Language
Understanding
Speech Recognition
Request
Response
Alexa Skills Kit: Signal Processing

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Your Service
Text to Speech
Machine Learning
Natural Language
Understanding
Speech Recognition
Response
Cards
Utterances
Intents
Alexa Skills Kit: Utterances into Intents

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Your Service
Text to Speech
Machine Learning
Natural Language
Understanding
Speech Recognition
Response
Cards
Audio
Intents
Alexa Skills Kit: Requests and Responses

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Your Service
Text to Speech
SSML, streaming audio
Machine Learning
Natural Language
Understanding
Speech Recognition
Response
Cards
Audio
Intents
Alexa Skills Kit: Output

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Build
• Alexa Skills Kit
• AWS Lambda
Deploy
• Skill Management
API
• ASK CLI
Publish in Skill
Marketplace
Enable as Alexa for
Business private skill

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Build Your Own Custom Skills
Alexa, tell Service Desk the
projector is not working
Echo
device
Your Skill
Your Backend Systems

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AWS Lambda: Tap Into 100+ AWS services
Alexa, tell Service Desk the
projector is not working
Echo
device
Your Skill
Non-AWS services and
resources
Other services

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Building location aware skills
• Location awareness provided by Alexa for Business’
ResolveRoom API
• Determines the details for the room from which a skill
request was invoked.
• “Tell Help Desk the projector lamp needs to be
replaced” or “Fix the printer equipment”

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Alexa, what’s for lunch in the cafeteria?
When creating a new skill, things to think about…
Voice User Interface
• How will the skill be used?
• What intents will be supported?
• What should the skill say?
• What will users ask?
Where is the data coming from?
• Is the data static or does it change?
• Where will the data be stored?
• How will new data be ingested?

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Let’s make it easier format for code to read…
"Menu": [{
"Soup": "3 Bean Swiss Chard, Miso, Garden Vegetable*, Chicken Noodle",
"Salad Bar": "Assortment Of Fresh, Local, & Seasonal Vegetables",..
"A La Cart": "Pan Seared Pork Dumpling, Kimchi Salad, Soy Ginger Dip",
"Chalkboard": "Garden Burger - Tomato, Lettuce, Chipotle Aioli, Creek
Stone CAB Burger ( 5oz Burger) - Creek Stone Black Angus Beef ",
"Deli Station": "Made To Order Sandwiches , Variety of Specialty Breads,
Spreads and Toppings, Whole Grain Rolls & Wraps",
"Rustico": "5 Subs, Pulled Chicken, Queso Fresco, , Radish, Chipotle Crema",
"Chopstix": "Featuring - Spider Roll, Made to order sushi and sashimi
prepared daily by in house sushi chef",
"Super Salad": "Super Salad, Baby Arugula, Romaine, Baby Spinach,
Mesclun, Grilled Salmon, Herb Chicken Breast, Grilled Tofu, Roasted
Butternut Squash",
"Explore": "Not Junk Food, Taco Well Crunch: Crumbled Impossible Meat",
"International": "Italy, Turkey Bolognese w/ Tossed , Pasta…",
"RA Kitchen": "Tomato, Mozzarella, Basil Pesto, , Multi Grain Roll",
"Grab & Go": "Hummus & Pita Chips, Shaker Salad"
Lunch characteristics
Date – menu options change potentially
daily. If none is provided, assume today.
Station – to help make our response
shorter, focus on specific stations for
food.
Given these inputs, process a menu PDF
once and store the output, broken out by
day and station, in a common location.
Sample JSON

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Alexa, ask Trello to list all tasks in Code Review
wake word
utterance
Invocation name
launch slot value
ListTasksIntent
Intent

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Code samples
• Download A4B code starter samples: https://github.com/alexa/alexa-for-
business
• Serverless Application Repository: https://serverlessrepo.aws.amazon.com
• Share code for Alexa skill Lambda functions
• Link to your own GitHub repos
• Facilitate others to create Lambda functions using your provided template

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Where will you take Alexa?

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Get Started Today:
• Setup your Alexa for Business account at console.aws.amazon.com/a4b
• Purchase Alexa for Business Starter Kit at www.amazon.com/a4b-starterkit
• Follow the Admin Guide at https://docs.aws.amazon.com/a4b/latest/ag/a4b-ag.pdf
• Visit the Alexa for Business Getting Started page
at aws.amazon.com/alexaforbusiness/getting-started
• Download A4B code starter samples: https://github.com/alexa/alexa-for-business

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Submit session feedback
1. Tap the Schedule icon.
2. Select the session you
attended.
3. Tap Session Evaluation to
submit your feedback.

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Thank you!
moosterg@amazon.com
srivats@amazon.com