Adobe unveils new Microsoft HoloLens and Amazon Alexa integrations

By Nat Levy as written on geekwire.com

Adobe is in the middle of its big Summit conference, where it is introducing a variety of new technologies, including tie-ins with the Microsoft HoloLens augmented reality headset and Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa.

Many of these new innovations are backed by the company’s artificial intelligence and machine learning platform Adobe Sensei and the company’s catalog of cloud offerings.

Virtual reality is a big part of Adobe’s newest projects. In the advertising realm, the company envisioned a situation where someone could be standing in the middle of Times Square in New York City with a VR headset on. Based on the individual, various Adobe products such as Sensei and the Adobe Experience Cloud would come together to virtually replace the iconic billboards in the neighborhood with advertisements that might better speak to that person.

The HoloLens project visualizes data and layers it on top of the real world. For example, a retailer could use the technology to visualize sales data, so an employee wearing a HoloLens could see how various items are doing and decide to emphasize the more popular ones in the store. Additionally, retailers could place sensors on items, and see which products are generating the most foot traffic.

Here is a look at how Adobe and Microsoft are working together on virtual reality and retail:

Adobe wants to personalize Amazon’s digital brain Alexa. Alexa is open to third party developers, and Adobe wants to tie in its Experience Cloud to make it possible for consumers to ask Alexa for their reward status for a hotel chain or airline, for example.

Alexa would then use their customer profile data and preferences to recommend promotions or activities that take advantage of those rewards. Adobe said it would be able to do this in a way that protects people’s privacy.