Google's Amazon Echo killer is code-named 'Chirp'

Google is reportedly working on a competitor to Amazon's sleeper hit, the smart speaker Echo, and the project is adorably dubbed Chirp internally, according to Recode's Mark Bergen.

Like the Echo, Chirp will be a hardware product that can respond to voice commands, like questions or demands to activate music.

Although Chirp is set to launch this year, Bergen's sources say that Chirp likely won't be ready for Google's big developers' conference next week.

We will likely hear about the machine learning and voice tech that makes the device possible though.

Google has been talking a lot about device-agnostic AI lately.

"Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the 'device' to fade away," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post last month. "Over time, the computer itself - whatever its form factor - will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world."

The device likely falls under the purview of Google's new hardware czar, Rick Osterloh.

NOW WATCH: Clever ways to reuse your old iPod

Please enable Javascript to watch this video