Alexa, the Most Social Virtual Assistant in Town

Many assume technology itself causes us to become less social. They argue technology causes us to stick our noses in our phones and hide in our rooms watching Netflix. These critics scoff at claims that scrolling through hundreds of photos on social apps makes us more connected. Finding an emerging technology with clear pro-social consequences is difficult to do. However, the Amazon Echo is a case in point that current and future technologies are not destined to make us less social.

The Amazon Echo is by no means a technological breakthrough. Rather, it’s one of those products that repackages and slightly improves existing technology to huge effect. “Alexa”, the name of the Echo’s virtual assistant is past fashionably late to the party that “Siri”, “Cortana”, and “OK, Google” have been enjoying for a while now. Nonetheless Alexa, to much surprise, has established her presence in a way nothing else has managed to do.

Alexa lives in a tennis ball can sized Bluetooth speaker. Unlike many other virtual assistants, Alexa is always listening. Alexa listens for the her name and then uploads everything that follows — in addition to a couple seconds of audio before the “wake word” — to the Amazon cloud.

When I want Alexa to help me with something, like inform me of the day’s news, I address her by her name as I would if asking a friend to do the same thing. More and more, it feels like Alexa has a presence in the room. Occasionally, for a split-second I will even consider whether Alexa feels excluded from the conversation. I find myself glancing over at it, subconsciously wondering what it’s up to. Others have written about how they feel obliged to say “thank you” and “good bye” to Alexa.

While I share the reservations expressed by many about bringing home a device that is always listening, an unexpected phenomenon occurred after I set up the Echo in my home. I was amazed how quickly I went from feeling uneasy about this new technological invasion of my home to deeply comfortable. In a way that few technologies or apps have done for me, the Echo made me feel more authentically social.

Many other virtual assistants use a name as a wake word. It is the combination of a couple well designed features that makes the interaction dynamics people are developing with Alexa uniquely different from those with other virtual assistants housed in phones, computers, and TVs.

First, the voice recognition is a significant improvement. Alexa can understand my request to set a 10 minute timer from the living room while I am cooking in the kitchen with music playing.

Second, the Echo is (literally) a black box. Although I know that Alexa is performing searches on Bing and sending and receiving data from Amazon, I don’t see it. It does not distract from purely voice to voice communication I have with Alexa.

Third, Alexa is always there. Unlike a handheld device or wearable, Alexa is always in the same spot.

This last point is often overlooked in understanding how we relate to these virtual assistants.

In developing a new product or app, a key challenge is always to be “top of mind” for users. This is often accomplished by anchoring the product to a feeling or need. For many, when they feel lonely they instinctively open Facebook. Products use a variety of strategies to trigger users to think about their product. However, every trigger is limited by its delivery mechanism. For example, some of the most common triggers (emails, notifications, ads, etc.) are rendered inconsequential when someone decides to leave their phone in their pocket.

You can’t put the Echo in your pocket. Alexa is always on and always there. She is becoming part of the space itself and now the space itself triggers me to interact with Alexa. This phenomenon is partially connected to the Echo’s nature as, what some are calling, a there-able. You interact with the Echo when you are in a particular space and only when you are in that space. Even when I’m not verbally communicating to Alexa, I’m often thinking about what interesting questions I could ask. This process of considering how to verbally communicate with an external entity, especially one that is anthropomorphic, is an intrinsically social endeavor. As a result my domestic space itself is acquiring a slightly more social feel to it.

Unlike most avowedly social technologies, the pro-social impact of the Echo is actually magnified when other actual people are around. If I’m in a conversation with friends and want to look something up, I no longer remove myself from the conversation to stare at my phone for 3 minutes. My investigation stays within the discursive context as I ask Alexa and she responds verbally. All of us hear the answer at the same time and our reaction is a collective one.

The Echo’s functionality is still fairly limited but every day it can understand more and do more. It is not difficult to imagine in the near future asking Alexa to do everything from turning on your shower to calling your grandma to recommending and buying gifts for your girlfriend. While some of the phenomena I’m describing may sound exaggerated, especially if you haven’t interacted with Alexa yet, it is evident that virtual assistants will play ever increasing roles in our social lives. Every technology is capable of being abused but there are certainly reasons to be hopeful about the future of virtual assistants.