Amazon has introduced different speed settings for Alexa. This means you can now ask Alexa to either speak more quickly or more slowly. The reasons why you may want to do this are many and varied, but the bottom line is it's good to have the option.

How to Make Alexa Speak Faster or Slower

Amazon announced Alexa's new speed settings in a post on Day One. Customers can ask Alexa to speak faster or slower, depending on their personal preference. And if they don't like the change they can simply say, "Alexa, speak at your default rate".

Sarah Caplener, head of Alexa for Everyone, said, "We heard from customers that they would like the ability to change Alexa's speaking rate for a variety of reasons." Caplener then cites older, hard of hearing, and blind users being the inspiration for this change.

Alexa now has seven speaking speeds. There's the default one, plus four faster speaking rates and two slower speaking rates. You can adjust Alexa's speaking speed on any Alexa-enabled device by saying, "Alexa, speak faster" or "Alexa, speak slower".

The option to change Alexa's speaking speed is rolling out now to customers in the US. It isn't yet clear whether Amazon will then roll this feature out to Alexa users in the rest of the world, but we see no reason why the company wouldn't want to do so.

Reasons to Change Alexa's Speaking Speed

This should prove to be a helpful feature. People who are hard of hearing or who use Alexa as a companion may want to ask Alexa to speak slower. And people who listen to audiobooks and want to get through more stories may want to ask Alexa to speak faster.

Alexa is a controversial topic at the moment, after it was revealed that Amazon contractors can listen to your Alexa recordings. So, before you start messing around with Alexa's speaking speed, you should stop Amazon listening to your Alexa recordings.