Roku Inc. said Wednesday that it plans to release a voice assistant and expand its licensing program to additional home entertainment devices for its TV operating system, Roku OS. Roku stock is up 1.3% in premarket trading Wednesday. The new licensing program will allow third-parties to make hardware such as soundbars, smart speakers and other complex multi-room audio systems and let users control them through Roku’s voice assistant and remote, said Roku vice president of product management Mark Ely. Ely said the licensing program will be called Roku Connect and the company does not expect it to materially affect the company’s revenue. In addition, much like the virtual assistants the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. unit Google have built, Roku also plans to roll out its own version of a virtual helper in the fall of this year called Roku Entertainment Assistant. Focused on “home entertainment” functions, the virtual assistant will allow consumers to launch shows and and play music with voice commands, among other functions, Ely said. The company has not yet announced partnerships with music streaming services such as Pandora Inc. Ely said both the virtual assistant and Connect software would be free for users and rolled out via software updates. Since Roku stock began trading in September it has gained 122%, as the S&P 500 index rose 7.4% during the same period.
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