Amazon to team up with Apple, Google for Alexa voice assistant

The retailer has 5,000 people working on Echo home speakers and the Alexa platform that powers the devices

Amazon is willing to team up with competitors Apple and Alphabet’s Google if it would help improve customers’ experience with its Alexa voice-activated virtual assistant, an executive working on the platform said.

The online retailer, which is already working with Microsoft on productivity features for Alexa such as calendar interactions, will put the user first in pursuit of any other partnerships, said Toni Reid, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo devices, who has been on the team since 2014.

“We are super passionate about the customer approach,” Reid said Wednesday in a taped interview with Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang.

The Seattle-based retailer