What are “hunches” in the latest update of Amazon Alexa?

Announced back in September when Amazon said, “we’re just getting started”, hunches, and other new features, are allset to arrive on voice-activated Echo devices.

Broadly put, Hunches enable Alexa to perform certain actions based on user behavior. With the feature, the assistant will analyze your daily pattern. And when once it has completely understood that behavioral pattern, it can provide you reminders accordingly.

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For instance, say before sleeping, you usually switch off your lights in the living room every day. Amazon Alexa will read and analyze this pattern. So, if one night you actually forget to turn off the lights in the living room, your assistant will remind you about it with something like “Hey, I think you may have forgotten to turn off the lights in the living room.”

(Courtesy: Mayo Clinic)

Another example is, say, before starting from home every morning, you turn off your refrigerator. Amazon Alexa will read your pattern. So, if one day you forget to do that, it will remind you about it.

Pretty cool, right?

It’s a giant step forward towards making AI-based assistants much more human-like. And it’s not just about giving them a natural voice. It’s also about giving them the human-like capability to respond to users much naturally and intuitively.

And as we move forward to invest more in the Internet of Things (IoT), such capabilities in our assistants can literally give our life 360. (And, oh, not to forget, they would also make us lazy!)

Aside from “Hunches”, Amazon will also roll out location-based reminders in its latest Alexa updates.