Alexa, the voice service that powers Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap and Amazon Fire TV provides a set of built-in abilities, or skills, that enable customers to interact with devices in a more intuitive way using voice. Examples of these skills include the ability to play music, answer general questions, set an alarm or timer and more. Customers can then access these new skills simply by asking Alexa a question or making a command. This session will be a walkthrough of the latest Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) and will teach you how to build your own skills for Alexa enabled devices. You will also learn how to monitor your new skill using AWS CloudWatch and how to test your skill using AWS Lambda Unit Tests and the Alexa Voice and Service Simulators.

1. © 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Jeff Blankenburg
@jeffblankenburg
August 14, 2017
Build an Alexa Skill using AWS Lambda

2. Get a head start!
Create your accounts
developer.amazon.com
aws.amazon.com
SSID:
AWSSummitNYC
Password:
@awsnyc2017

3. Get Registered For Today!
alexa.design/jeff

4. 70s 80s 90s 00s Present
GUI
Web
Mobile
Character
Mode
VUI

6. LG FordTechnicolor Dish
Polkaudio Huawei Mate 9Linkplay Lenovo

8. A look inside Echo

9. Available in the US, UK, and Germany

10. ASK or AVS?

11. Enabling Alexa Skills

14. @Jeff
@Alexa
Up Next: Skill Building Fundamentals
Skill Building Fundamentals
• Core Concepts
• Lab: Build Your First Skill
Voice Design
• Design Patterns
• Lab: Design a voice experience
Lunch and open hacking
New Features and APIs
• New ASK capabilities
• Lab: Calling APIS
Connecting to Web Services
• Cloud services, Database, IoT
• Lab: Persistence
Demos

15. How Alexa Works

16. Creating an Alexa Skill
Voice User Interface Programming Logic
+

17. Creating an Alexa Skill
Voice User Interface Programming Logic
+
developer.amazon.com aws.amazon.com

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

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

20. Utterances
Alexa Skills Kit: Utterances Into Intents
Request
Cards
Speech Recognition
Machine Learning
Natural Language Understanding
Text to speech
Response
Your
Service
Intents

21. foʊr maɪlz
4 Miles
For Miles
Form Isles
For My Isles
ASR – Automatic Speech Recognition

22. foʊr maɪlz
4 Miles
For Miles
Form Isles
For My Isles
ASR – Automatic Speech Recognition

23. foʊr maɪlz
4 Miles
For Miles
Form Isles
For My Isles
ASR – Automatic Speech Recognition

24. foʊr maɪlz
4 Miles
For Miles
Form Isles
For My Isles
ASR – Automatic Speech Recognition

25. Alexa, ask Chicago Guide to give me an activity
wake word utteranceInvocation namelaunch
Utterances and Intents

26. Utterances and Intents
Recommend an Attraction
utterance
Alexa, ask for an activity from Chicago Guide
wake word Invocation namelaunch utterance

27. Utterances and Intents
AttractionIntent
Intent
Recommend an Attraction
utterance
Alexa, ask for an activity from Chicago Guide
wake word Invocation namelaunch utterance

28. Built-in Slots
{distance: “4”}
slot value
Give me an activity within four miles
slot value
AttractionIntent
Intent
utterance

31. Tell me about golfing within four miles
slot value
Custom Slots
AttractionIntent
Intent
slot value
{distance: “4”}
slot value
AttractionIntent
Intent
{activity: “golfing”}
slot value

34. How Do I Receive My Slot?
myDistance = this.event.request.intent.slots.distance.value
myActivity = this.event.request.intent.slots.activity.value

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

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

37. Lab: Local Recommendation
alexa.design/labs-local

38. Send a text message to:
Would you recommend this workshop to a friend or colleague?
+1 (646) 490-0200
(Extremely likely)
10
Not likely at all
1
……….……….

39. Dialogue Sketch (20 minutes)
Pick a topic and write your happy path script with Alexa

40. Alexa Design Guide
alexa.design/guide

41. Lab: Skill Builder
alexa.design/labs-design

42. Lab: Hello World
https://github.com/alexa/alexa-
cookbook/tree/master/labs/HelloWorld

43. @Jeff
@Alexa
Thank you
All the labs from today:
alexa.design/devdays
Socks and an Echo Dot