She is very small and faces a giant. Elokense, creator of the Akinator genius, attracted the interest of the Amazon group and in particular its subsidiary Alexa France.
Alexa, Amazon’s essential voice assistant, is celebrating its fifth anniversary in France this year. From generative AI to the history of France, including energy savings, Alexa is accelerating its digital penetration in several sectors.
More than 20,000 games played each week
In Eure-et-Loir, the American group had detected the start-up Elockence, and its web genius, Akinator. The Akinator skill (voice application on devices equipped with Alexa technology) was launched in 2018 by the two partners. Since then, the two companies have collaborated effectively and Akinator has discovered new spaces and new languages around the world.
Akinator, the little genius of the Internet
“Created in 2007 by Arnaud Megret under the name Devinettor, the platform is based on the concept of an online guessing game, where a virtual “genius” tries to guess who or what you are thinking of by asking a series of questions. Akinator quickly won the hearts of millions of players around the world by guessing who or what they are thinking about. In 2018, a new milestone was reached with the launch of Akinator as a Skill on Alexa in France. This development made it possible to adapt the Akinator experience to voice recognition, thus offering a new dimension of interaction with users,” says Jérôme Soreau, Sales Director at Elokense.
This new adventure with Amazon has allowed Akinator to grow and today the Skill is available in 16 languages, including Arabic, Hebrew and Korean, with plans to expand to Vietnam and China.
Rapid growth
“In France, Akinator on Alexa is experiencing real success with more than 20,000 games played each week on average. Alexa represents 3% of Akinator users in France. The Skill is used on average 2 to 3 days per month by its users. Usage peaks in France are on Wednesdays, weekends and during school holidays (November, December, January and summer). An example of popular use: parents often use the application in the car to entertain their children,” explains Clément Monjou, general manager of Alexa France.
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The boss of Alexa France intends to strengthen his technical, even strategic, collaboration in the voice applications segment, with Elokense which demonstrates exemplary agility, innovation and creativity. For Elokense managers, Amazon’s support represents real leverage for their international growth. Elokense employs around ten people and generates more than 4 million euros in annual turnover, from its headquarters in the Jardin d’entreprises in Chartres.
