Amazon Says Alexa Products Are Top-Sellers Fourth Quarter Earnings Call Amid Doubters

On Thursday, Amazon released its fourth-quarter earnings report, which revealed that the top-selling products during the holidays were products powered by Alexa, the online mega-retailer’s virtual assistant.

“Alexa-enabled devices were the top-selling products across all categories on Amazon.com this holiday season. Customers purchased and gifted a record-setting number of devices from the Amazon Echo family with sales up over 9x compared to last holiday season,” the report read.

There have been concerns as to whether Amazon’s biggest bet in the artificial intelligence market will actually earn the company money. But CNET cited analysts, who said that it may not be now, but it will be later. Although numbers for Amazon’s Echo, the always-on, always-listening speaker that’s connected to the Internet, were not sizeable, Amazon is clearly leading in the AI race since 2014, and is expected to cash in on the lead. Co-founder of market researcher Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Michael R Levin said introducing Alexa to as many places in people’s lives is the endgame.

But there are serious doubters if Alexa, or even Echo will really be a staple in the household. Alexander Aciman for Quartz wrote, “It is, indeed, the greatest clock radio ever made. Nothing more. This much becomes apparent if I grow overzealous and put forth a slightly complicated search query. At moments like these I begin to feel that Alexa’s entire existence is so remarkably counterintuitive and sometimes even suspect she has been put on this planet to thwart me at every turn. Unless, of course, I need to ask her what time it is, or if I want to hear Taylor Swift. On those tasks she always performs marvelously.”