The highly anticipated Amazon Alexa workspace has opened in downtown Santa Barbara.
There focus for now will be hiring workers to design and improve the voice-activated system used by millions worldwide.
Senior Manager Kevin Davis says the workspace will also be part of the economic comeback of the downtown Santa Barbara area, as the workspace will have nearly 300 workers in it.
"Amazon always invests in the community they're at," Davis says. "If you go around the world, you'll see that our offices are often in downtown, urban centers, so that the employees are living and interacting with the customers we try to serve every day."
The site on State and Carillo street will not serve as a place to pick up Amazon's ubiquitous packages, though in the future a portion of the building may be open to the public in the form of a restaurant.