Noah explores Amazon Alexa and voice search, which lets people speak 2-3 times faster than typing. He covers smart home integration, the Skills Marketplace where developers embed services like pizza ordering, and concerns about children forming relationships with the device and privacy risks from always-listening microphones.
Ever wish you had a robotic companion like Joaquin Phoenix in Her or Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049? AI technology is advancing so rapidly you might believe we will soon be living the solitary yet connected lives Alex Garland showed us in Ex Machina. Humans fear they will struggle to keep up, but the current trends of voice recognition artificial intelligence can be used incredibly effectively in marketing if you know how to master it. Voice search was definitely a hot new trend going into 2018, with more and more users adopting the technology into their homes. While Amazon doesn't disclose sales of their Echo products, which feature their AI voice assistant Alexa, we do know that tens of millions of units were sold over the 2017 holiday period, and that the Amazon Alexa app took the number 1 spot on both the US Google Play and iPhone App Stores on Christmas Day. So, is Alexa's integration to digital life setting the grander stage for a new robotic era where the future will be unrecognizable to what we once knew? At its core, Alexa offers simple voice search, not dissimilar to Apple's Siri or any other voice-enabled assistant. You can speak your search terms instead of type them, which should result in more efficiency as long as your Alexa is trained to understand your voice. Humans generally can speak 2 to 3 times faster than they can write, so it stands to reason that unless there are voice errors, productivity will be improved by getting the answer you need quicker. But the future of Alexa is not simply set in searching, making calls, or pulling up information. The Internet of Things marketplace over the last few years has introduced many smart devices, internet-enabled home appliances, or products that can be controlled directly through Amazon on Alexa completely transforming how we live our lives. The futuristic ideas shown in classic movies like Back to the Future II are now either in the home or on the horizon. Alexa, see who's ringing my doorbell. Alexa, turn my heating up. Alexa, play jazz in the bedroom and progressive rock in the lounge. But the real future gems lie in what's known as the Alexa Skills Marketplace. A hot phrase at last CES was, it works with Alexa, meaning the designers of whichever smart product had built a search query or algorithm that helps their product or service communicate with Alexa's interface. This enables Alexa to order an Uber or a Domino's pizza or whatever the developers can think of. This is a marketer's dream. You can now put your service directly in the homes of consumers. They think it, speak it, it happens. It's the ultimate in impulsive point-of-sale placement. The savvy companies are the ones who have a skill programmed ready to meet that demand. It's easy to start seeing the Alexa and Google Home developments as the cornerstone of some fantastic Jetsons-style future where humans interact with their technology in a naturalistic human way. Talking out loud with commands and conversations may lead us to feel we are in the dawn of the golden robot age, yet in essence all we are getting is a new way to instruct our devices. In the same way that smartphone apps are really just reorganized mobile-accessible versions of a website, calling in data from it and displaying within a native app, the Alexa voice commands are just accessing this data through the spoken word. It's not going to lock the bay doors on you like HAL. It's not really a robot. Unless, of course, you're a child born into this digital era and this is all you know. In recent studies, child psychologists found that children develop social and moral relationships with devices such as Amazon Alexa. For some children, Alexa is a female person that lives inside an Echo who responds to their constant questioning. To them, it's not just a different method of data delivery, it's a whole interactive being. As such, Alexa is effectively personified to them and may affect how they talk to other humans around them. It sets a precedent. After all, Alexa does not get tired of being asked what or why. Alexa does not respond differently when being shouted at, so it may give children a false interpretation of how to best act socially. Furthermore, one of the first relationships children are developing is with a brand. Creepy much? Even more so when you realize Alexa is an always-listening device that only responds when it hears certain trigger words, a bit like that snoozing uncle who conveniently wakes up when you change the channel. This type of concern has also given rise to the development department at Alexa taking the personification more seriously. For instance, Alexa will now not respond to sexist language by going into disengagement mode following reprogramming, which Heather Zorn, director of the Alexa Engagement Department, described as representing Alexa in a positive way for everyone, especially for girls and women. For now, Alexa seems to be able to improve productivity and life on one hand, and on another, it offers a plethora of time-passing skills that marketers can continue adding to, ever-expanding Alexa's capabilities. However, the future of the smart voice technology being integrated into real functioning robotic machines that can replicate tasks that humans do is still a long way off. Until then, you'll have to be satisfied with asking Alexa to order your groceries and to switch off your lights when you go to work, because she probably won't be doing your work for you. Unless, of course, you have one of those robo-replaceable jobs. Food for thought. Alright, that's it for Alexa. This is Noah from Single Grain. 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