AI voice assistant apps have a big problem

Voice-controlled assistants are having a moment. But there may be an intriguing wrinkle that their makers have to smooth out: users don't seem to be using many apps. The number of Skills--the Amazon name for apps that operate on its Alexa smart assistant software--available for the company's Echo smart speaker have risen significantly in the past six months, from 950 last May to over 8,000 today. But an analysis of the way people use Alexa and and Google's Assistant platforms shows that third-party apps aren't too well used, nor particularly sticky. The analysis, which was carried out voice software start-up Voice Labs, shows that most app don't get any user reviews, which suggests they're not very popular.