Amazon has revealed that Alexa was asked millions of questions during the 2016 presidential election and it has taken learnings from that to improve the assistant’s capability to answer such questions in the run-up to the U.S. midterm elections. The company says that Alexa is now well prepared to answer questions about the upcoming midterm elections.
Alexa will now be able to provide information about voter registration deadlines, voting options, what times polls open and close, and more. It has also teamed up with Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan and nonprofit digital encyclopedia, to provide ballot information.
The assistant can provide all of this information in response to queries like “Alexa, when are the polls open?,” “Alexa, who is running for Senate in [state]?,” “Alexa, what’s on my ballot?,” and more.
Amazon has also partnered with the Associated Press to provide real-time updates on election results. Just ask “Alexa, what’s my election update?,” or “Alexa, how is [candidate] doing in the election?” to get real-time updates.
It will also be possible to get more details on the election outcome after polls close. Queries like “Alexa, what happened in the midterm elections?” and “Alexa, how many seats did [party] gain?” will surface the relevant information.