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Alexa could pick up your next customer service call

Amazon Web Services is preparing to sell Alexa-based software to call centers, reports The Information.

Andrew Gebhart Former senior producer
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The Echo could soon bring its skills to customer call centers.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The next time you call an insurance company to complain, you might hear a familiar voice on the phone.

Amazon Web Services might soon sell its virtual assistant Alexa, best known as the voice in the Amazon Echo speaker, as a cloud based service to retail call centers, according to a report Tuesday from The Information. Alexa will respond to questions over the phone or via text, unnamed sources told the publication, and AWS has started pitching the service to insurance providers and health care companies.

Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

If true, Alexa and Amazon could help improve the technology of automation in customer contact centers. The pitch from AWS also reportedly includes two developers tools, called Lex and Polly, allowing retail customers to build apps that'll be able to conversationally help customers.

Since Alexa isn't as conversational as the Google Assistant built into the Google Home, this service could also hint at Amazon's efforts to improve Alexa's contextual awareness.