TL;DRAmazon is beta-testing a Hindi version of Alexa+ in India, its first expansion into a non-Western-language market.

Amazon is testing Alexa+ in India with Hindi-language support, the company’s first move to bring its generative AI assistant to a non-Western-language market. The company sent emails to select Indian customers inviting them to join a beta-testing programme, according to TechCrunch, which viewed the invitations.

The emails asked users to fill out a form in Hindi by June 22 to join the programme. “We are creating a new Alexa experience, and your feedback will be important to refine what Alexa+ will be able to do,” the invitation read, adding that participants would be notified when the Hindi testing experience becomes available.

Amazon confirmed it is testing Alexa+ in India but declined to comment further. The beta software will have bugs and may give inaccurate information or mispronounce local nuances, according to the email. Alexa+ is not currently available in India, and no launch date has been announced.

The Hindi market is enormous. More than 600 million people speak the language in India, many of them in a code-mixed way that blends Hindi and English in the same conversation. Amazon first launched Alexa in India with English support in 2017 and added Hindi compatibility in September 2019, but the original Alexa was a command-based system with none of the conversational AI capabilities that define Alexa+.