The voice in the kitchen is about to start earning its keep.
Charlotte Maines, who holds the title of vice president for content and advertising at Amazon's Alexa division, told Adweek this week that advertisers are playing an increasingly central role in shaping how the voice assistant helps customers shop and find information. The phrasing is worth noting: not that advertising will appear alongside Alexa's responses, but that advertisers will help shape them.
Amazon, which has never been shy about integrating commerce into every available surface, says that Alexa now reaches some 600 million devices worldwide. That is a rather large installed base of potential shopping companions. (The company's other artificial intelligence assistant, Rufus, which lives inside the Amazon app and website, is used by more than 300 million shoppers, which suggests the retail giant is now running two parallel experiments in how to make product recommendations feel like conversation.)
The distinction Ms. Maines drew between the two systems — what the new Alexa has that Rufus did not — appears to center on advertising's position in the architecture itself. Rufus answers questions about products. The new Alexa, it seems, will answer questions that advertisers have helped to frame.
For marketers who have spent the past decade trying to figure out what voice commerce actually means, this may represent the clearest answer yet: it means the same thing commerce has always meant, only now the cash register talks back.
Whether consumers will notice the difference between a recommendation and a sponsored recommendation remains, as it has since the first search engine sold its first keyword, an open question that the industry prefers not to dwell on for too long.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Amazon Exec Reveals What the New Alexa Has That Rufus Didn't"