Amazon Is Fixing Alexa's Biggest Flaw, Responding When It’s Not Called

Amazon’s smart assistant Alexa has been exploding in popularity but it comes with quite a few issues that annoy certain users. For one thing, it turns on whenever the word “Alexa” is used, which is an actual name of real people. For another, it responds to other words that sound similar, which leads to unintentional launches. This is what Amazon is currently trying to fix.

As Tech Crunch points out, Alexa has become quite adept at responding whenever it detects its name being mentioned, even just offhand. As a result, this has caused no end of trouble for those who are named Alexa or even those with variations of it such as Alexis or Alex.

In a new development, Amazon announced a new service called Cloud-Based Wake Word Verification, which has two-factor false-positive filtering aspects, among other things. It’s basically a method for third-party companies that also utilize Alexa to keep up with the screening technology that Amazon already has. This would ideally result in an experience that involves less frustration for the users.

For those concerned, Amazon is assuring that the extra step of identifying voice commands won’t slow down Alexa’s response time. However, it will make accidental responses to questions or commands that were never uttered intentionally at the smart assistant less likely to happen.

As for Amazon’s own Echo devices, a spokesperson for the company informed CNET that the feature is already pre-built into the products. So, if users have noticed that there has been a drop in unintentional interactions with Alexa on the Echo Speaker and the Echo Dot, this is the reason.

This is certainly a step in the right direction for the company, especially in the wake of its announcement of additional upcoming Echo devices, namely; the Echo Look and Echo Show. Both of these products are already bogged down by privacy concerns as it is without adding customer frustration into the mix.