AVS devices interact with the voice recognition services provided by Amazon in the cloud to interpret user requests and then take actions based on the settings you have configured for your office. One important thing to understand about how Alexa works is that the device itself actually has very little in the way of voice recognition and analysis capability built into it. The onboard software really only knows how to listen to the wake word—Alexa, Amazon, Echo, or Computer, depending on which word you have configured. Everything else happens in the cloud. When the device recognizes the wake word, the blue light on the top of the device starts spinning (depending on your device model), which means your voice is now being transmitted to Amazon's servers.

Amazon solved a remarkably difficult problem when it enabled reliable voice recognition from a device that may be on the other side of a room with lots of noisy distractions, and now that functionality can be used to enhance your office experience.