Use Personalization With or Without Account Linking

If a recognized speaker with a voice ID has Personalize Skills enabled in the voice ID settings of the Alexa app, this speaker can account link for a skill at the personal profile level. If Personalize skills is disabled, a recognized speaker can account link only at the shared account level. The shared account refers to the Amazon account to which the current Alexa-enabled device is registered. For more information about how Alexa users can enable or disable personalization and manage voice IDs, see Manage skill personalization as a user.

For a single Amazon account, multiple users can link their personal accounts for your skill. Alexa can recognize the speaker and use the correct personal account based on who is speaking to Alexa, without the user having to say, "Alexa, switch accounts."

Your skill can support personalization for recognized speakers either with or without account linking. A user can choose to enable or disable Personalize skills in the Alexa app. A user can choose to account link or not.

When a recognized speaker with a voice ID, with Personalize skills enabled, account links, they are linking to their personal Alexa profile.

When a user, with Personalize skills disabled, account links, they are linking to a shared account for all users of devices registered to the user's Amazon account.

The following tables describe how your skill behaves depending on the combination of personalization and account linking settings.

How an Alexa user can set up personalization and account linking

Your skill users will vary with respect to whether they have set up voice IDs, personalization, and account linking in the Alexa app. For personalization for recognized speakers to work for an Alexa user, they must make sure that Alexa recognizes their voice, that they have set up a personal profile in the Alexa app, and that Personalize skills is enabled for their voice ID.

A skill can't include a person object in a request if Alexa doesn't recognize the speaker, and the person object can't contain a personId value if the speaker has not set up account linking in the Alexa app. Thus, the speaker has the responsibility to manage their personal profile in the Alexa app.

If a recognized speaker wants to account link between their personal profile and the skill, they must first sign into the Alexa app with the credentials for the Amazon account for the current Alexa-enabled device. Once signed in, the speaker can go to the main menu, and choose Settings. The Alexa app lists the personal profiles for the recognized users. If the speaker is one of those recognized users, the speaker can account link in the Alexa app.

If the speaker is not listed as a recognized user, the speaker can follow the prompts in the Alexa app to add another personal profile, and can set up their voice ID in their personal profile. Then the speaker can also account link with this personal profile.

Skill supports personalization and account linking

This table refers to both the person and the user objects in the response. If present, the person object represents the current recognized speaker. The user object refers to the Amazon account to which the currently active Alexa device is registered.

Personalization
enabled for recognized speaker
with voice ID		 Account linking
done		 Result
yes yes The person and user objects are present. If the speaker has done account linking with their personal profile, the person object, if it is present in the request, contains an accessToken value. The user object also contains an accessToken value for the shared account, if that account has been linked.
yes no The person and user objects are present. No accessToken values are present in either the person or user object. The skill can use personId values to distinguish among speakers in the current session, but can't perform any features related to account linking, at either the person or user levels.
no yes The user object is present in the user requests. The person object is not present in the user requests.
In the Alexa app, the user can only link an account to the skill at the shared account level.
no no The skill can't use either personalization for recognized speakers, or account linking features. The skill should prompt the user for account linking when required to use certain skill features, and respond gracefully if the speaker declines to perform account linking.

Skill supports personalization for recognized speakers, but not account linking

In this case, the skill service supports personalization, but not account linking.

Personalization
enabled for speaker		 Result
yes The person and user objects are present in the speaker's requests. You can use the personId value to track, but not identify, recognized speakers during the current session.
However, there are no accessToken values in either the user or person objects. The skill can distinguish between recognized speakers in the current session, and can maintain state against personId values for later sessions.
no The user object is present in the user's requests. The person object is not present in the user's requests. The skill can't distinguish between any speakers in any way during the current session, so any personalization is done at the account level.

Skill supports account linking, but not personalization for recognized speakers

In this case, the skill service supports account linking, but not personalization for recognized speakers.

Account linking
performed		 Result
yes The user object is present in the user's requests. The user.accessToken value references the third-party account linked with the Amazon account only.
No person object is present in the user's requests. The skill can't distinguish between any speakers during the current session.
no The user object is present in the user's requests. No user.accessToken value is present. No person object is present in the user's requests. The skill can't distinguish between any speakers in any way during the current session.

Skill supports neither account linking nor personalization

In this case, the skill service supports neither account linking nor personalization.

Personalization
enabled		 Result
yes or no The skill behaves in the same way regardless of whether the speaker has Personalize skills enabled in the Alexa app. The user object is present in requests. The person object is not present in requests. No user.accessToken value is present, as there is no account linking. The skill can't distinguish between any speakers during the current session.
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Last updated: Nov 29, 2023