Amazon has announced a number of improvements for working with Alexa at its recent Alexa Live 2022 conference. There's news of a Skill Developer Accelerator Program (SDAP) for third-party skill developers to build custom skills and grow their businesses with Alexa and the prospect of increased revenue.

Apps for Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant, are referred to as Skills, and the ability to offer in-skill purchasing has made Alexa an attractive platform for developers.

Developers who were quick to take advantage of offering premium content to expand their Alexa-based apps have been pleased with the return on their investment of effort. Amazon says that around twenty percent of all Alexa interactions involve customers engaging with a skill.

The latest round of improvements starts with a new Skill Developer Accelerator Program (SDAP) for third-party skill developers to build custom skills and grow their businesses with Alexa. The program offers developers an increased revenue share opportunity and new benefits to help improve skill quality, discoverability and engagement.

SDAP rewards developers for building quality skills. Participants get a Skill Quality Coach that provides developers with a step-by-step approach for building high-quality skills with tailored guidance and feedback. The Skill Quality Coach works out a Skill Quality Score (SQS) by comparing the skill being developed to what users think of existing skills, and delivers personalized recommendations to drive improvements.

Participants also get an increased share of revenue and a "Value Back Incentive", so long as they earn less than $1MM in aggregate annual revenue from In-Skill Purchasing (ISP), Subscriptions, and Paid Skills. Qualifying developers will now receive revenue share of 80 percent, and will also receive 10 percent of their skills’ earnings as an additional value back incentive.

The second announcement of interest made at the conference is the Alexa Routines Kit (ARK), which gives developers a way to create custom collections of routines - Alexa actions such as 'tell me the weather'. The idea is that instead of creating their own collections from scratch, customers can choose one of your pre-built Routines then use it when some trigger occurs, such as the door bell ringing or at a specific time.

Another announcement is the Alexa Shopping Kit, a suite of features that allows you to embed shopping experiences within your skill. Customers can discover, research, and purchase relevant products from within a skill. You need to simply choose the products from Amazon.com you want to show, and with Amazon Associates on Alexa, developers can earn up to 10% commission on eligible purchases referred from their skill.

More Information

Alexa Live

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