Amazon’s Alexa will soon start guessing your next request

Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant will get better at predicting your next request, thanks to new machine learning systems. The capability is already available to Alexa customers in English in the United States, and it brings Amazon’s voice assistant closer to more natural conversations. The company notes in a blog post that early metrics have shown that the new system is increasing customer engagement.

In a blog post, Amazon announced that Alexa’s new capability lets it infer the customer’s latent goals, which might not be expressed directly, but are implied within the request. For example, if a user asks how long does it take to steep tea, the next question might be about setting a timer for this task.