Voices From The Amazon
Voices From The Amazon – A quarter of all American households now have an Alexa-powered Amazon Echo. But the rise in popularity of these virtual assistants comes with new questions about convenience and privacy, especially as companies look to make smart speakers more “human.”
According to Alpine AI, Alexa has a 70 percent voice market share in the United States, and customers turn to the device for everything from menus to directions to find their phone. According to a new report from Consumer Research Associates, it has become Amazon’s main source of revenue, largely because it gets more spending from Amazon Prime members.
Voices From The Amazon
NBC News got exclusive access to Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle and an interview with Alexa head Tony Reed to learn more about the future of such a big device.
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Reid spent 20 years at Amazon, initially joining as a member of the fledgling recruiting team, bringing new talent to the company.
“I started recruiting, and it was a really good place for me because I learned a lot about different parts of the business,” Reed says of Amazon’s early days. “From there I moved into product management. One of the teams I supported really got me into the business and from there I started getting new and bigger opportunities.”
Inside Amazon’s Day One building in Seattle, there’s an invisible office door that leads to a smart home lab that Reid and his team use for testing and usage. The lab was designed to look like a simple house, but with two kitchens. Amazon is bringing an off-the-shelf product to this space to better understand how customers use their Alexa devices.
“Everything is voice-controlled,” Reid said of the living lab. “We want to know how customers feel and how they use our devices in the natural environment.”
Voice Of The Amazon
Alexa has faced a number of privacy issues in recent months, including the device accidentally laughing and an incident in which an Echo recorded a couple’s home and sent the footage to random contacts.
When asked by NBC News about the incident and whether customers can still trust Alexa despite this incident, Reed said: understand the new .. so they understand that when you say ‘Alexa,’ it just hears the word wake up, and when it hears the word wake up, the device turns on and starts streaming.”
Reid said the ultimate goal for Alexa is to become humanoid. To achieve this, Amazon wants to personalize the device. For example, he wants the Echo to be able to distinguish between sounds in the home or office and adapt its response to that person’s preferences.
However, there are serious questions about how adults and children will interact with AI-powered voice assistants.
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“A lot of people talk to Alexa. Some of these things don’t require a response, like “Alexa, I love you” or “Alexa, I’m lonely, I’m sad, I’m happy.” Reed said: We really appreciate the feedback we get. Sometimes you can be light and fun, and sometimes you have to be thoughtful. So with each of these new experiences or relationships, we wonder “what is our responsibility here?” we think
He told NBC News. “We think about the products we build and the teams and people who build them that really see and represent those customers.”
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