Amazon's new Alexa feature uses AI to infer what users really want

Amazon today announced a new Alexa feature for U.S.-based English-language users that enables devices powered by the assistant to infer latent goals, or goals implicit in requests but not directly expressed. For instance, if a user says "How long does it take to steep tea?," Alexa might follow up with "Five minutes is a good place to start" and the question "Would you like me to set a timer for five minutes?" According to Amazon, dialog transitions like these require a number of AI algorithms under the hood. A machine learning-based trigger model decides whether to anticipate a latent goal by factoring in aspects of the context including text of a user's session and whether the user has engaged with Alexa's suggestions in the past. If the model finds the context suitable, the system suggests an Alexa app to address the latent goal. Those suggestions are based on relationships learned by the latent-goal discovery model, according to Amazon.