Amazon Challenges Developers To Create Chatbots That Can Multitask

As voice device usage ticks upwards during the pandemic, Amazon is introducing a new competition challenging developers to create voice apps that can handle complex tasks with multiple steps. The Alexa Prize TaskBot Challenge is the latest in a series of contests the tech giant has held since 2016 to improve various aspects of its voice experience. The event will grant up to 10 university teams a $250,000 research grant each, with which they will build tools that allow Alexa to better multitask in how she responds to user queries and requests. The winning teams from that set will then receive between $50,000 and $500,000 in additional prize money. The competition will focus specifically on building apps for home improvement and cooking at first with new categories added over the course of the three-year run. Despite Alexa's growing range of abilities, Amazon's digital assistant is rarely able to complete more than one command at a time and usually responds to user queries with a single response. With the new challenge, Amazon hopes to create experiences where Alexa can run through multi-step processes at once and hold ongoing discussions with users to walk them through projects like cooking meals or shopping for the materials needed to build a small piece of furniture. We need to rally the best scientific minds if we want to be successful.Yoelle Maarek, Alexa Shopping “This new Alexa Prize challenge represents a major step towards Alexa becoming the best digital assistant, by interactively assisting customers to complete everyday tasks, be it in cooking or home improvement," Yoelle Maarek, vice president of research and science for Alexa Shopping, said in a statement. "This is a hard AI challenge and we need to rally the best scientific minds if we want to be successful. This is a wonderful example of our customer-obsessed science approach where we push the boundaries of science to help and delight our customers together with academia." Other previous and ongoing Alexa Prize Challenges have focused on improvements like allowing Alexa to hold more engaging and coherent conversations and building better accessibility tools. One of the ultimate goals of initiatives like these is to push Echo users into doing more of their shopping through voice devices. While people like using Alexa for simple tasks like streaming music or checking the news—and even some forms of rote replenishment buying—voice commerce has yet to fully catch on widely, according to various reports. More complex voice apps that can better walk consumers through various options could help alleviate some of this reluctance. The challenge comes as voice devices like Amazon's Echo lineup have been enjoying a surge of popularity among people stuck at home during quarantine. A report from Pandora and Edison Research found average daily time spent listening to smart speakers grew by 43% from January to October of last year. But analysts have also questioned whether the upswing will outlast stay-at-home orders, given how much it depends on pandemic-specific situations rather than any significant improvement in device user experience or technological sophistication.