The Stealthy Launch of Alexa: Innovation Amidst Failure

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:

• Amazon just surprised everyone with a crazy speaker that talks to you
• Amazon Echo review: listen up
• Alexa, where’s my Star Trek Computer?
• Alexa, thank you for the music
• The Alexa Skills revolution that wasn’t
• The Amazon Echo graveyard
• Amazon’s supercharged Alexa won’t arrive this year

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