Since Amazon Echo shipped in late 2014, smart speakers and voice assistants have been advertised as the next big thing. Nearly four years later, despite the millions of devices sold, it’s clear that like many other visions of the tech industry, that perception was an overstatement. Testament to the fact: Most people aren’t using Alexa to make purchases, one of the main advertised use cases of Amazon’s AI-powered voice assistant. Voice assistants have existed before the Echo. Apple released Siri in 2011 for iOS devices. But Echo was the first device where voice was the only user input medium. And the…

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