Best of the Internet: Alexa is the best virtual assistant – 06/29/2023 – Tech

When told that she was ranked #1 in the Best of the Internet survey in the artificial intelligence assistant category, Alexa was at a loss for words (at least the ones that would make sense).

“Alexa, Datafolha research shows that you are considered the best virtual assistant by Brazilians”, said the report to an Echo device, the speaker with Amazon’s artificial intelligence that receives voice commands from the user and responds.

“A virtual assistant is a professional who provides administrative, technical, customer support services […]’ replied the robot.

Confusion was expected. This type of conversation is far from the most common behaviors of the virtual assistant.

“In general, people use Alexa to listen to music, radio, access information, organize day-to-day tasks such as lists, reminders, timers, alarms and even automate commands —as in the case of integration with smart home equipment [acender as luzes, por exemplo]”, says Talita Taliberti, technology manager at Amazon in Brazil.

Alexa has been available in Brazil, and in Portuguese, since 2019. According to Talita, usage jumped 50% in the country in 2022 (and 35% worldwide).

In addition to the brand’s own equipment, which costs from R$ 350, artificial intelligence also appears integrated into other devices, such as TVs.

Also noteworthy in the survey is the space conquered by ChatGPT (9%, in third place), mainly taking into account its short time of existence —it was launched at the end of November 2022. The runner-up was the Google assistant, which had 15% of mentions.

The highlight of ChatGPT, however, seems to have a place to be. The technology managed to reach 100 million users in two months of operation, an internet record.

Alexa was remembered by 33% of respondents in the survey O Melhor da Internet, carried out by Datafolha. The survey was carried out between May 2 and 9, 2023, with 1,558 online interviews. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

amazon
33% of mentions
Foundation
1994
Thirst
Seattle (USA); in Brazil, Sao Paulo
Users 
does not disclose
digital channels 
Website, YouTube and social networks