Your Voice Assistant May Be Getting Smarter, But It's Still Awkward

In September of this year, Amazon hosted a press event in the steamy Spheres at its Seattle headquarters, announcing a dizzying array of new hardware products designed to work with the voice assistant Alexa. But at the event, Amazon also debuted some new capabilities for Alexa that showcased the ways in which the company has been trying to give its voice assistant what is essentially a better memory. At one point during the presentation, Amazon executive Dave Limp whispered a command to Alexa to play a lullaby. Voice-controlled virtual assistants like Alexa and the speakers they live inside are no longer a novelty; an estimated 100 million smart speakers were installed homes around the world in 2018. But this year, the companies making voice-controlled products tried to turn them into sentient gadgets.