Amazon’s Alexa cracked nearly 9,000 daily jokes in India last year

Alexa has turned three. It was only in February 2018 that Amazon’s voice service became a part of the lives of Indians, and what a period it has been for her. As per the tech giant, in 2020 alone, customers said, “I love you” to Alexa 19,000 times a day, up 1,200 per cent from 2019.

On its third anniversary, Amazon will make Alexa affordable and more accessible for the customers who are looking to welcome the voice service in their homes. Starting midnight on February 15, for 24 hours, the sellers on Amazon.in will have blockbuster offers on best-selling echo devices, attractive smart home bundles and more.

Customers can also shop from a curation of smart home accessories from some of India’s biggest consumer electronic brands, said the company.

“Be it the echo device in the living room, 100-plus Alexa built-in devices or your favourite smartphone, it is heart-warming to see users across the length and breadth of the country across age groups find value and adopt Alexa in their daily lives”, said Puneesh Kumar, country leader for Alexa, Amazon India.

“For us, it’s always Day 1, as we learn from our customers and continue to add new features, improving Alexa’s understanding on topics that matter to users locally.”

Here’s a roundup of how Indians interacted with Alexa in 2020:

· The never-ending love for Alexa! Indians expressed their love around 19,000 times a day by saying, ‘’Alexa, I love you’’, and asking, ‘’Alexa, marry me’’ around 6,000 times a day.

· Indians love listening to their favourite songs on Alexa and requested for over 17 lakh songs every day! ‘Shaitan Ka Saala’, ‘Muqabla’, and ‘Aankh Marey’ were the most requested Bollywood songs in 2020.

· Smart home appliances were the talk of almost every Alexa household. Customers used voice to control their smart lights, fans, ACs, security cameras, air purifiers and TVs, and asked Alexa to control a smart device 8.6 lakh times daily.

· Alexa can tickle your funny bone too! She made customers laugh close to 9,000 times every day by cracking a joke. She also makes for a good laugh-along buddy, as customers asked Alexa to laugh along around 12,000 times every day.

· Bollywood buffs asked Alexa to mimic a celeb every day and asked her around 3,000 times daily to deliver a Bollywood dialogue in Alexa’s ‘ishtyle’.

· Have a question? Just ask Alexa! From ‘who has scored the most runs?’ to ‘why do we celebrate Diwali?’ Alexa answered more than 86,000 factual questions every day!

· Wondering how a Llama sounds? Well, you can simply ask Alexa. In 2020, Alexa answered over 43,000 animal sounds requests via the Wild Planet Skill every day.

· Users loved the convenience of interacting with Alexa on their smartphones too. On the Amazon shopping app, Alexa addressed over 5.8 lakh requests every day by helping customers search for products, best deals, make bill payments and even listen to music.

· Alexa is the new storyteller in town! She narrated almost 19,000 stories per day, in Hindi and English.

· Did you know Alexa does poetry too? Be it about friendship or hope or even the diversity of food in India, she has a poem for them all. Customers asked Alexa for a ‘kavita’ over 1,000 times a day!

· Alexa is on top of the pop culture phenomenon. Her quirky answer to “Alexa, rasodey mein kaun tha?” was the most popular in 2020, and customers asked her this question more than 14,000 times daily.

· Alexa started serving Urdu and ‘love shayari’, as well as the works of popular poets like Mirza Ghalib. The poetry got a lot of love, with customers asking for ‘shayari’ at least 3,000 times a day.

· Alexa donned the role of a ‘purohit/pandit’, from reciting ‘bhajans’ to playing ‘aarti’ songs, Alexa answered more than 4,000 requests per day during Durga Puja, Dussehra and Navaratri festivals.

“From voice-assistant-enabled feature phones to connected devices like Alexa and Google Home, the ecosystem is taking an encouraging turn, and thus, opening up much more avenues for brands and businesses,” said a February 2020 report from dentsu India’s digital agency WATConsult. The report was called ‘Voice technology in India: now and future - consumer and business perspective’.

The report stated that the speech and voice recognition technology market is to grow from over Rs 149 crore, as of December 2019, to reach Rs 210 crore-plus by the end of 2020, at a rate of 40.47 per cent.