China’s Alibaba just announced their own AI-equipped speaker the Tmall Genie, a smart speaker with Amazon Echo-like features. The announcement comes in just a few days after the news of Samsung working on its own smart speaker.
The Tmall Genie is not powered by Alex or Google’s AI assistant, the company’s smart speaker will be powered by the AliGenie voice assistant. As for features, the Tmall Genie has the same functionality as the Amazon Echo, the smart speaker will be able to control your smart home, check the weather, offer news, music playback, and a host of other skills. The smart speaker is activated by saying “Tmall Genie” in Mandarin. Just like the Echo lets you place shopping orders from Amazon, the Tmall Genie will allow owners to order items from Alibaba’s shopping site.
The device is only available in China for now and only speaks and I guess understands only Mandarin. The Tmall Genie will be available on July 17th for the equivalent of $73. The smart speaker will be launching in a limited beta, those who are interested can sign up here. to get notified by the middle of July to complete their purchases.
