Author: Perez Clark

Amazon on Monday announced the launch of its new storytelling feature – ‘Create With Alexa, an AI tool that serves as a story craft companion.

Amazon claims the feature is the solution to the problem most parents encounter during their bedtime routine: a lack of entertaining stories.

This article will look at Amazon Echo’s new storytelling feature, and how it works.

Let’s get started!

‘Alexa, Let’s Make A Story’: Amazon’s New Feature Turns Your Echo Show Into A Storytelling Companion

What Is Amazon’s “Create With Alexa” Feature?

Create with Alexa is Amazon’s newest feature that allows little storytellers to partner with Alexa to create fun, audiovisual, and narrative bedtime tales.

To use the feature, children can simply say, “Alexa, let’s make a story, follow a few consecutive steps and wait for Alexa to take control – crafting a unique character and story arc tailored to your kid’s sound and graphic preferences.

Elements like the story’s setting, character, and pattern depend on your child’s preferences. For each scene, Alexa provides a new composition of visuals, sound effects, and background music to accompany the setting – and no two stories are ever the same.

For instance, once your child is ready to create with Alexa, they select a particular theme – let’s say “haunted forest” or “magical underwater.” They then choose a character name – maybe, a bear named “Doozie” or a mermaid named “Aquarius” – next to choose a color theme, and select attributes like “funny,”‘ “friendly” or “weird.

Using those descriptions, Alexa creates a 5-10 line tale, spread across five visually and musically unique scenes. The greatest part about this feature is that no matter the number of times your child repeats a set of story elements, Alexa forms a different story every time.

Your child can save their stories to a personal library to rewatch later on. Also, they can send them to friends and loved ones to view.

How Does It Work?

The entire Create With Alexa experience is a direct result of the ongoing progressions made in the AI space. By integrating generative and conversational AI technology, Alexa can form the story’s scenery, narrative, and sound.

Amazon’s trained language algorithm model builds the narrative and text of the story. Developers at Amazon trained the model to create a connected kids’ tale by generating plots using your child’s inputs. 

The model creates stories using a vast collection of instrumentals, incorporating melodies, rhythms, and harmonies from human-created artworks. 

Finally, a scene-generation algorithm takes the story to life by illustrating images from human and AI creators. The model also includes objects essential to the storyline’s location, facial expressions for each character, and gestures such as hand waves and head nods.

Creating A New, Safe, and Interactive Bedtime Experience

“Our plan for Alexa has always been to create a reliable and fun ally that brings joy to the whole family,” says Eshan Bhatnagar, Product Head for Alexa AI. “So we built this experience to accomplish that goal.”

As a parent, Bhatnagar says making the storytelling experience safe for the little children using Alexa was vital. “From the beginning, we delicately organized the data sources used to train our Alexa models,” he said. 

“We’ve imposed several guidelines like thoroughly-curated prompts and content filtering to provide the most secure and gratifying customer experience possible,” 

Bhatnagar also states that user privacy was critical in creating Alexa’s storytelling feature. As every child-designed feature should be, Create with Alexa demands valid parental confirmation to operate.

“We look forward to a world where everyone can speak a few words and illustrate their ideas into immersive digital creations,” Bhatnagar said. “Alexa works to turn that into a reality, always at your side as your creative co-creator.”

Conclusion

With parental control enabled, families can start creating with Alexa on their Echo Show device with several free templates on launch. The feature is available in English, and soon users will be able to share their saved story tales.