Waiting for Alexa 2.0 (and Other Voice AI Assistant Improvements)

There's nothing like a new holiday gift to start the "What if" train, and the arrival of an Amazon Alexa Echo on December 25 was clearly an eye-opener. The Amazon Echo is a sweet piece of hardware and the only place it can go is up. For those who haven't seen the Echo (or got a Google Home instead), it is a round tall black cylinder about a foot plus high, containing seven or so microphones plus a beautiful set of speakers. Echo is always-on, always listening for voice commands triggered by the keyword "Alexa" to invoke recording and processing. It is fair to say everyone has only begun to scratch the surface of a virtual assistant through a dedicated appliance (i.e. Amazon provides API hooks so third-party services from pizza delivery to Lyft and Uber ride shares can be ordered via voice, but it is going to take time and education – (Thank you Amazon, for the daily TV reminders!)