Smart speakers risk creating 'big-tech monopoly' in homes

Services such as Amazon's Alexa could be regulated to allow rival digital assistants to operate on smart speakers and stop the tech giants building a monopoly "in people's kitchens and living rooms", the head of the BBC's radio operation has said. James Purnell, the director of radio and education at the BBC, made the comments weeks after the BBC launched its own voice-activated digital assistant, named Beeb, which offers information such as news, weather and programmes. The BBC is already struggling to keep youth audiences tuning into its TV programming in the Netflix era, and Purnell raised the spectre of the Silicon Valley giants extending that to control of audio access as smart speakers become commonplace. "We now have smart speakers in so many homes, and they are going to be in far more homes," he said, speaking to MPs on the digital, media, culture and sport select committee. "There is a question about whether we are happy about the biggest organisations in the world, big tech companies with their executives essentially [based] in the [United] States, combining a monopoly in people's kitchens and in living rooms. "I do think it is worth thinking about whether there should be some regulation of those smart speakers so there is a choice of assistance for people.