Gillian Armstrong
Aug 22, 2017 · 1 min read

Alexa skills are a very interesting thing. On one hand, very necessary for rapid expansion of the functionality available, on the other somewhat clunky to engage with (I for one can never remember their names to use them), and difficult to discover. I think they suffer from not quite being part of Alexa, but not really being a whole chatbot in and of themselves. I imagine the decision to keep Alexa’s voice was in part to make it appear more seamless — as if they really were just ‘skills’ that Alexa itself had, but your point is very valid. They are different, they can be a different tone or personality — and its very hard to know if you are in a Skill or in the main Alexa flow since you have only voice, and often it may not be obvious a Skill has exited. However, keeping the lines blurred does mean that Amazon’s Brand stays very much above any of your own ‘branding’ you may attempt, and in the end I wonder if that is exactly why they have done it.

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    Gillian Armstrong

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    Technologist and ponderer of the technology, psychology and philosophy of AI and CogTech. | http://virtualgill.io