As we have been hearing over the last months, Amazon Alexa is being added to every device possible. According to Amazon European general manager for Alexa, Fabrice Rousseau, the TV is the most important device in the house, and they are set to conquer it. With the Fire TV Cube and the TV stick you can experience a hands-free TV experience and sip that wine without worrying about the remote controller.

Broadcasters might be happy about the wine, but are not that happy about the rest. The chief consumer and strategy officer for Channel 4 in Europe has said that “As a content provider we have no control over this service,”. “We have to actively defend ourselves.”

Let’s explore the reasons behind this:

One of the concerns highlighted by the Channel 4 Strategy Officer, is the fear that voice won’t allow them as content providers to deliver the diversity of content they do today and a guarantee that it won’t be taken away. Including niche content that might be surfaced on a home page and get lost. The channel is dabbling with voice, but its first experiments are with Google Assistant. Basically, they are afraid of Amazon removing content in favor of Amazon Prime Video service. Thus the Assistant becomes the first option that do not pose that problem.

That’s one of the backslash Amazon have been encountering with Alexa for different devices, as companies are showing their concerns with Amazon’s tentacles that extend to their streaming service as well as a threat to broadcasters.

We learned recently that Amazon is on more than 20 000 devices and just yesterday they announced that they are planning to release at least 8 new Alexa-powered devices, including a microwave, an amplifier, and an in-car gadget.

Channel 4 Strategy Officer urged her peers to work together in a voice interfaces standard for their metadata with the goal to not confuse the consumer. And asked Amazon to share data on how consumers use their services through Alexa.

Fundamentally, that’s the key point I want you take away from this episode: voice platforms and in this case Alexa, are becoming the owner of the consumer. Everyone wants in. Because we find ourselves at a unique inflection point where everything is about to change.

Amazon European general manager for Alexa, Fabrice Rousseau insisted that there were no plans to prioritize Amazon Prime over that of other content providers with a caveat “as of yet”.

Companies that fail to see through this change are going to stay suffer in their bottom line, and companies that capitalize in voice are going to be rewarded. Is that simple. These reactions from broadcasters show the stage is set in for the shift voice is bound to make for brands.

Thank you for listening. Remember to subscribe, like, comment and share this episodes. My name is Mari, and you can find me on Twitter as voicefirstlabs and on Instagram @voicefirstweekly.  Thank you for listening and you have a great day!