Amazon now offers its own version of Google Assistant cameo voices -  but for Alexa devices, obviously - and it's starting with Samuel L Jackson.

In other words, Amazon will now let you hear a celebrity voice in addition to Alexa on an Amazon Echo device. Amazon first revealed this past autumn that it planned to roll out new voices, but now the first voice has gone live. This initiative is similar to Google's, which also allows celebrity voices to be enabled in addition to Google Assistant's default voice on Google Nest devices.

Samuel L Jackson's voice on Amazon Echo is mostly powered by Amazon’s neural text-to-speech model. Amazon is essentially leveraging deepfake tech to create his voice. As a result, Jackson didn't have to pre-record all his responses. While he did prep some canned answers, many of them, including ones about weather, etc, are neural responses generated by Amazon's model.

When will Samuel L Jackson's voice be available?

Starting 13 December, you can enable Samuel L Jackson's voice on your Amazon Echo device. This means you will hear his voice when you ask Alexa for music, the weather forecast, and more. You can also ask questions relevant to Samuel L Jackson himself, like about his career. The feature doesn’t yet support lists, reminders, skills, or shopping for Amazon items through Alexa.

Everything else should work like normal. 

How to get Samuel L Jackson's voice

Amazon offers both explicit and clean versions of Samuel L Jackson’s voice. If you wish to hear him drop F-bombs through your very own Echo, simply go to the settings menu of the Alexa app to toggle between clean and explicit content.

To enable Samuel L Jackson's voice, follow these steps:

  1. Say, “Alexa, introduce me to Samuel L. Jackson”.
  2. Or, purchase the required Alexa skill (here).
  3. Confirm your purchase with Alexa.
  4. Enable or disable explicit content in the Alexa app.

How to invoke Samuel L Jackson's voice

Samuel L Jackson's voice won't replace Alexa. And you have to specifically request his voice, and it's only available in English.

  1. Say, “Alexa, ask Samuel L. Jackson", followed by your query. 

Here are some other things you can try asking:

  1. “Alexa, ask Samuel L. Jackson where he is from.”
  2. “Alexa, ask Sam to wake me up at 7am.”
  3. “Alexa, ask Sam Jackson to sing happy birthday.”

How much does Samuel L Jackson's voice cost?

It costs 99 cents in the US. Amazon said celebrity voices will jump to $4.99 apiece after an initial launch period.