Alicia Keys’ collaboration with Amazon brings star power to the voice economy

As consumers increasingly use voice-controlled devices for their transactions, Amazon is partnering with Alicia Keys and leveraging her fame to promote Alexa usage.

The musician’s beauty brand, Keys Soulcare, developed in collaboration with Elf Beauty, announced on Wednesday (June 26) that it is working with Amazon Alexa on an offering for Echo device users. When they activate the custom design, consumers will hear words and music from Keys’ voice, including beauty tips and product information.

“With our new Alexa experience, we’re bringing Keys Soulcare’s philosophy into people’s everyday lives, helping them develop powerful beauty routines that nurture their whole self,” Alicia Keys said in a statement. “There’s so much power in a voice – and this experience gives you time in your day to take care of yourself while having fun – I’m filled with gratitude to connect with Alexa users in this special way.”

Consumers using this design can shop the skincare brand via voice command and activate various self-care-related features such as positive affirmations and other feel-good cues.

With this offering, available until the end of August, Amazon is exploring the personal, conversational feel that voice commerce can provide, leveraging the fame of a well-known personality to encourage consumers to welcome voice-assisted shopping into their homes.

In an interview with PYMNTS published in March, Christian Mentz, CRO at Cerence, explained that thanks to the context awareness and natural language processing (NLP) of the latest artificial intelligence (AI) models, voice capabilities have evolved from a “taskmaster” service that merely surfaces information to a more intuitive, human-like experience.

Consumers, in turn, are increasingly using voice devices. Last year’s PYMNTS Intelligence report, “How Consumers Want to Live in the Voice Economy,” relied on a survey of nearly 3,000 U.S. consumers to understand their views and attitudes toward voice-controlled technology. The results showed that 27% of consumers have used a voice-controlled device such as a speaker, while 39% have used the voice technology built into their smartphones.

Additionally, the study “How We Will Pay: How Connected Devices Enable Multitasking for Digital-First Consumers” found that the average consumer has 5.1 connected devices in their home, but voice-controlled assistants are not among the top five most commonly used such devices.

According to the 2024 edition of PYMNTS Intelligence’s How the World Does Digital report, many consumers use their voice to shop and pay. The study examines the digital engagement of 67,000 consumers in 11 countries that account for about half of the world’s gross domestic product. The results show that 27% of consumers use voice technology to shop at least once a month, 18% do so weekly, and 7% daily. When paying with voice technology, these shares drop to 25%, 16%, and 6%, respectively.

Additionally, the study found that the average consumer uses voice technology to shop 4.5 days per month and to pay 4.0 days per month. High-income consumers and Generation Z consumers used voice technology to shop and pay more often than any other income group or generation.