The big goal for Alexa is a nice, long chat, says Alexa's chief scientist

Amazon wants you to have long, real conversations with Alexa, its popular personal digital assistant. The e-tail giant recently released new tools to app developers that allow Alexa to whisper, show emotion and pause naturally, like we humans do. And that's just the start, says Rohit Prasad, Amazon's head scientist for Alexa, who is playing a key role in the retailer's efforts in artificial intelligence for Alexa--using computers to converse with us. "I truly believe that for AI to be useful in our daily lives, it has to be something you can connect with," Prasad said in an interview here. "Conversation is the next step, to be more human-like."