Amazon Alexa has the power to be a leveler of the digital divide. Here is how…

Conversational UIs (CUI) have been gaining rapid prominence this year. If web applications enabled new user conveniences (like self-service travel booking and e-commerce) in the 1990s, Mobile apps opened up different set of conveniences since 2007 (like GPS navigation, ride hailing, and messengers). Over the past two years, CUIs like Amazon Alexa have begun to enable another interaction mode that has the potential to unlock new set user conveniences and use cases like never before.

Conversational UIs include both text based and voice based UIs. The focus of this blog post is on voice based UI.

First, some data & context

According to Pew Research, about 40 Million people in the US barely use the internet at all! The causative factors that erect these barriers of entry are many. Data shows that under-educated and older demographics are among the hardest hit. This data however does not show us internet usage statistics for the spectrum of disabled and differently abled individuals in the country.

Alexa, techies love you!

Amazon has released the Alexa platform in November 2014 through the Amazon Echo device. It did not take long for Echo to be a massive hit. Amazon has been adding steady stream of capabilities and creating rich ecosystem of Alexa Skills — along the lines of an app store in the mobile world. Enthusiastic developers have already released thousands of new Alexa skills since then. The following image from the Research Analyst firm Statista shows where the current work is focused on, in the Alexa ecosystem.

By looking at this data and the current crop of Alexa Skills out in the wild, it is easy to dismiss Alexa as just another tech toy that offers developer dopamine for the technophiles. That line of argument would be myopic though! Toys are often the harbinger of the future. Toys are the manifestation of human mental leap of what is possible. They are our creative imagination, wishes, fantasies and desires. No wonder toys and science fiction have been inseparable. As the legendary science fiction author, AC Clarke stated — all good technology is indistinguishable from magic!

Alexa, you are magic!

All great technological breakthroughs happen when the ecosystem and support structures are developed well enough and the ‘perfect storm’ is formed to create the tipping point with technology adoption. In the case of Alexa the power of the platform comes from 4 key capabilities:

(a) Alexa Voice Service — a set of NLP algorithms that are rapidly evolving

(b) Alexa Skill Kit (ASK) — API to code new skills

(c) Breadth of AWS PaaS and IaaS products — gives developers the much needed flexibility to implement variety of use cases. AWS Lambda and Elastic Bean Stalk are very commonly used for Alexa skills implementation.

(d) Developer Support — Amazon has been nurturing the Alexa developer community through multi-pronged support system with low financial barrier of entry, a $100m Alexa Fund, and developer evangelism.

Alexa, you are very intelligent!

CUIs are not entirely new. Voice driven IVRs have been in existence for years. However, we all know the poor UX factor of the IVRs. However, the rapid progress being made in the field of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence is what makes the new generation of CUIs like Alexa Voice Service interesting and easier to work with. Cloud Computing has opened the floodgates for computationally intensive fields and there has been no looking back since! This precise combination of CUIs + AI is where the true magic lies (creating the perfect storm) for the success of this mode of information access.

Alexa, you are a bridge of the digital divide!

Interestingly, the limitation of voice-only interface opens up unique human-machine interaction patterns and design affordances, that are the best form factor for certain demographics — the ones that are largely left-behind by the surge of tech-driven conveniences and user experiences.

Web and mobile interfaces require the user to have at least some basic technical skills. The simplicity of invoking the voice interface, and their backward compatibility with older generation technologies like IVR, create this low barrier of entry for CUIs. Given this unique strength, it is not far-fetched to see CUIs to have much more meaningful impact for people across the socioeconomic spectrum. I hope governments experiment, iterate, innovate, and leverage technologies such as these for all the right reasons.

Utah and Mississippi state governments deserve a worthy mention as they have launched Alexa Skills already.

Alexa, here is where you shine honey!

Governments, NGOs and other institutions that engage in social programs have the need to serve the broadest people base — including the underprivileged. These demographics are also the ones that interact and rely on many of the publicly funded programs. Here are a few use cases where conversational tools like Alex could help immensely:

Continuing Education — Voice enabled study prep content offers productivity and on-the-go convenience for students and for continuing education users. For example, with Alexa driven test prep, users could use their commute time productively with voice enabled flash cards and mock tests. Continuing education is a very important tool for social and upward economic mobility, and it hits the poorer sections of the society disproportionately.

Elderly & Senior Citizens — As we saw from Pew data earlier, these demographics are on the other side of the digital experience, and have not been able to leverage the value the mobile and web platforms enough. Most of us may know of senior citizens that use mobile and web in limited ways due to their discomfort with modern tech. Alexa’s simple voice UI could give them new capabilities for communication, entertainment, information access, that other forms of UIs do not.

Under-literate — Voice interfaces also work well for people with lower literary skills. In many parts of the world and in the US, smart phone penetration is limited in certain neighborhoods due to lower local literacy levels. There are numerous studies (such as this, this and this)that have proven how 3G and 4G connectivity correlate with local economic upliftment. For people that are unable to use mobile and web due to literacy hurdles, Voice UIs, can once again bridge the gap help level the playing field.

People with limited or no vision — Another great use case for voice UIs is for people with vision anomalies that make them partially or completely blind. For people with limited or no vision, voice UIs could open up new worlds for them. Today, their ability to leverage the power of mobile and web is still largely limited, as ADA and accessibility focused interfaces for many products are under-invested.

Mental Illness— Artificial Intelligence field is very active to assist children and adults with a range of mental illnesses and Autism. There are already robots that are being developed that can show emotions and empathy. A voice UI is a required feature for these devices.

Children — This is a special category that falls on both side of the technology divide. Even for children with well to do parents, CUIs could open up new type of simple interactive toys that could teach children reading, singing, math and critical reasoning skills.

Health Information — In poorer neighborhoods access to reliable, affordable healthcare could be limited. People resort to local folklore for medical information about disease, symptoms and treatments. CUI driven information could help them connect to the right sources of information.

Alexa, you are not alone

Given the rapid traction of self-driving cars, chatbots and virtual assistants, the rise of CUI driven products is not entirely surprising. Few days ago, Google announced Google Home, a competitor to Alexa. It will be available in November, 2016. There are reports swirling that Apple is also working on a home wireless device. We can very well expect more products in the future.

Conclusion

Siri may have started it, but Alexa ran with it! Given the traction and growth of Alexa already, and if Amazon’s AWS growth story is any indication, Alexa has the potential to be a great-fit complementary UI that can seamlessly serve a broad variety of audience with access to information. In the meanwhile, it will have its share of teething troubles, but that should not deter us in innovating and experimenting.