Only about 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people know English. Yet, that is the only language Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa, which was launched in India two years ago, understands in the nation. That is changing today.

Almost two years after Amazon introduced its Alexa voice assistant in India, the Seattle-based company has added the much-needed support for Hindi language as well as Hinglish to the voice assistant.

Users can now ask Alexa their questions in Hindi, and the digital assistant would be able to respond in the same language. The feature, which will begin rolling out through a software update to Alexa devices starting today, currently only supports one voice type for Hindi. (For English, Alexa offers multiple voice types.) In the months to come, Amazon said it plans to add support for multilingual households, which will enable members of the family to interact with Alexa in the language they each prefer.

Only about 10% of India’s 1.3 billion people know English. Yet, that is the only language Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa, which was launched in India two years ago, understands in the nation. That is changing today.

Almost two years after Amazon introduced its Alexa voice assistant in India, the Seattle-based company has added the much-needed support for Hindi language as well as Hinglish to the voice assistant.

Users can now ask Alexa their questions in Hindi, and the digital assistant would be able to respond in the same language. The feature, which will begin rolling out through a software update to Alexa devices starting today, currently only supports one voice type for Hindi. (For English, Alexa offers multiple voice types.) In the months to come, Amazon said it plans to add support for multilingual households, which will enable members of the family to interact with Alexa in the language they each prefer.