Alexa could soon be sliding in advertisements for bleach or toothpaste when you go to shop. Amazon is in talks with companies like Proctor & Gamble and Clorox to advertise on Echo devices, potentially suggesting their products when you ask your Echo to buy something, according to CNBC.
Some of the talks are about search placement and whether brands can get mentioned over others. The next time Alexa helps with online shopping, it might suggest related products from a sponsored brand. This might even come up when you aren’t shopping. So if you ask Alexa to help clean up a spill, it might suggest you use a certain brand of cleaner, CNBC says.
Alexa currently has minimal ads, but CNBC reports that it will suggest Colgate if asked about toothpaste, which indicates a partnership. Proctor & Gamble is notable as a reported partner because the conglomerate has so many household brands that are already relatively well-known. It’s easy to imagine those names peppered into Alexa’s speech.
If sponsored brands become the first names that Alexa lists on a long list of results, it’s likely more people will just accept the top result, even if it’s an ad, because that’s preferable to listening to the voice assistant drone on. It’s the same reason I accept Siri’s misaligned judgment to send me to the Duane Reade pharmacy on the other side of town instead of the one a few blocks closer. The alternative is turning off the AI and just figuring out the directions myself.
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