By now, most people are aware of Amazon’s personal assistant, Alexa, who can be found in nearly all locations from the car to the kitchen. But many people don’t know exactly how the assistant functions, which begs the question, how does Alexa work? How is she able to respond so quickly to requests like “turn down the lights” or “Alexa, set a timer for 5 minutes”? Alexa, like many virtual assistants, utilizes servers or “the cloud” to help process voice commands and retrieve relevant information. While Alexa is now available in more than just Amazon products, this article will focus specifically on Alexa as the assistant available in Echo devices.
The Setup
Most new Echo owners are eager to get their device setup in order to start speaking with Alexa. To figure out how does Alexa work, it’s important to know that the most important part of the setup is the connection to the WiFi network. The connection allows Alexa to access the cloud, which is her lifeline for answering questions and fulfilling commands. Alexa cannot work on certain networks like those found on public wireless networks.
The Alexa app is also crucial for answering the question, how does Alexa work? The app provides the important interface that can let users change settings, manage features, and even learn which commands to use with Alexa. The commands Alexa has picked up from users are listed on the app and can be deleted if needed. The app also allows the management of Skills, which are extra features and commands Alexa can learn like ordering pizza or playing games.
How Does Amazon Alexa Work
The technical answer to how does Alexa work is a partly unclear process, however much is known. On a fully setup Amazon Echo device, a user can say something like, “Alexa, how many miles is it to the sun?” First, Alexa starts processing the request upon hearing the ‘wake word’, which is “Alexa” unless a different word has been selected. The ring on the device will turn blue while the information is being processed.
Depending on what the request is, she will send the information to the cloud for processing. As a side note, this has been a concern of many users, as the cloud stores all commands in order for Alexa to improve her ability to recognize voice commands. It isn’t clear if every command or question asked of Alexa is stored in the cloud. Some requests are likely simple enough, like “Alexa, add milk to my grocery list.” However, given that Amazon is determined to improve Alexa as much as possible, they likely want to collect as much data as they can.
However, Amazon has assured the public the servers are under very tight security.
The cloud is in charge of recognizing what was said and retrieving the relevant information to answer the question or fulfill the command. The actual process of speech pattern recognition is very complicated and has a long history. Essentially, probabilities and high-level mathematics are used to make sense of what was said.
Next, the information is actually processed. In response to the question asked above, Alexa will search the internet for the relevant information, process it, and then respond by giving the appropriate answer (It’s about 93 million miles to the sun, by the way). Most of what happens in an Echo device is actually occurring in servers that are in multiple locations, and likely very far away. There are other ways to make Alexa work for you besides answering random factual questions. Echo devices can now place and receive phone calls, as long as the user’s contacts are shared with Alexa. While the request needs to be processed by the cloud, cell towers will also be used to actually place the call. With many moving parts spanning huge distances, it is surprising how quickly Alexa can get the information back to users.