Dirhams & Dollars

Alexa famously squared off against the Google assistant at CES, but what was all the hype really about? Regardless of whether you call them digital assistants, chat bots, or AIs, these voice-activated devices are quickly making their impact felt everywhere, including here in the UAE. Souq.com was selling the Echo Dot – the hockey puck-sized device that houses Alexa – in the UAE during the holidays, part of a global push on the part of its parent company, Amazon, to grab markets share. But does Alexa in the UAE do everything it can in the US? And it brings up some questions, such as: do you need to be polite to your digital assistant? To get a better feel for what Alexa is all about, we bring it (her?) into the studio to ask a few questions. It quickly becomes apparent that Alexa is listening ready to talk…. maybe a little too much. Alexa isn’t the only digital assistant making headlines though. There are a lot of them coming on to the market, including Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Bixby.