Amazon's Alexa voice assistant arrives on Fire tablets

Amazon's Fire tablets are getting the Alexa voice assistant.

The previously announced feature will start rolling out to customers Wednesday. It's meant to complement what users get on other Alexa devices, such as the Echo speaker.

Through voice commands, users can get the news read out to them or listen to music from services such as Amazon Music or Pandora. On the tablet version, playback controls are offered, too.

When you ask for the weather, Alexa will not just speak out current conditions, but offer a visual card with the week's forecast.

Amazon says Alexa will differ from Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant in being designed for tablets first, rather than phones. That means focusing on tasks typically done at home, such as entertainment, recipes and timers.