Alexa at 10: Amazon’s assistant is a winner and a failure | The Vergecast

From The Verge.

November 6th marks 10 years to the day since Amazon surprise-launched a new, cylindrical device called the Echo. It introduced the world to smart speakers, and to the idea that you might be able to get stuff done just by shouting aloud in your living room. But a decade in, what has Alexa really accomplished? The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to talk through the history of Alexa, Amazon’s struggles to improve and extend its voice assistant, and the promise of a language model overhaul that might in theory make Alexa far more useful. There’s a chance Alexa’s second decade might be even more interesting than the first.

Further reading:

00:00 Intro
01:48 Alexa: A Decade in Review
03:41 The Launch Amazon Echo
14:19 Shortcomings of Alexa
34:32 The Future of Alexa
39:11 The Struggle with Universal Remotes
41:36 The Future of Ambient Computing
45:12 Challenges and Innovations in Voice Assistants
1:02:52 Vergecast Hotline

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