Amazon’s Alexa Takes Center Stage At CES

Ever since it launched in 2014, Amazon’s cloud-based assistant Alexa has taken the tech world by storm. Today, Alexa stands as one of the most popular AI companions available today. It’s been featured in countless “Best Of” featurettes, and was even featured in an episode of Mr. Robot. Amazon has been riding a wave of momentum on the success of Alexa, and there is no apparent slowdown in sight.

This year’s CES show has been filled with the latest offerings from every big name manufacturer on the planet. All of them aiming to bring the connected life into our homes at a more rapid pace. As popularity goes, everybody is trying to get a piece of the pie. More and more manufacturers are adopting devices “With Alexa” or “Alexa enabled”, and at CES Alexa took center stage as the real star of the show.

Westinghouse is planning on building a TV with Fire capabilities built-in. This means much like an Amazon Fire Stick, you’ll be able to control you TV, search for and play content all with your voice. Samsung and LG are building Refrigerators and Smart Bots with Alexa built-in as well, and ADT is planning on making their Pulse security system Alexa compatible soon. With so many devices incoming with Alexa compatibility, there’s one obvious device missing. 

The Amazon Fire Phone was a colossal failure, but now may be the time to reinvest in an Alexa based smartphone. A centralized hub to control all your Amazon Alexa enabled devices. Building an Alexa centered smartphone will cure one of Amazon’s biggest Alexa woes: Being able to manage your devices when you’re not home. While Alexa is an awesome thing to have, it still lacks the ability to be effective outside of the home. 

This is where building a great mobile interface would pay major dividends for Amazon. Having something with you that has the power to essentially control your entire world is something consumers are more than ready for. Unfortunately, they end up having to do so through the lens of several different operating systems, or even separate devices altogether. The experience ends up being a rather fractured one, and yet one that Amazon could swoop in and capitalize on. Especially considering so many other manufacturers have taken a liking to Alexa’s capabilities.