Amazon’s Alexa Was a Product of Secrecy
Orchestrated by Jeff Bezos, the company went to great lengths to conceal its plans for the voice assistant.
An "Echo" device during the U.K. launch event in London, in 2016.
Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg
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One day in 2011, a small team of artificial intelligence scientists based in Boston got an unexpected call: Amazon.com Inc. wanted to buy their company. Amazon’s founder and then chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, was leading a secret team to develop a unique device, a voice-activated computer that could recognize and respond to a person’s questions from across a noisy room.