“Alexa, Understand Me”

From that modest start, voice-based AI for the home has become a big business for Amazon and, increasingly, a strategic battleground with its technology rivals. Google, Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft are each putting thousands of researchers and business specialists to work trying to create irresistible versions of easy-to-use devices that we can talk with. “Until now, all of us have bent to accommodate tech, in terms of typing, tapping, or swiping. Now the new user interfaces are bending to us,” observes Ahmed Bouzid, the chief executive officer of Witlingo, which builds voice-driven apps of all sorts for banks, universities, law firms, and others.

For Amazon, what started out as a platform for a better jukebox has become something bigger: an artificial intelligence system built upon, and constantly learning from, human data. Its Alexa-powered Echo cylinder and tinier Dot are omnipresent household helpers that can turn off the lights, tell jokes, or let you read the news hands-free. They also collect reams of data about their users, which is being used to improve Alexa and add to its uses. The ultimate payoff is the opportunity to control—or at least influence—three important markets: home automation, home entertainment, and shopping.