What is the Alexa Prize? Launched in September 2016 as a global university competition, intended to push the boundaries of scientific progress by partnering with academia on compelling, visionary challenges. The first Grand Challenge has been for teams to build an Alexa Skill, a socialbot that can engage in a fun, high-quality conversation on popular societal topics for 20-minutes and achieve an average rating of at least 4.0/5.0.  At the conclusion of year two (2018) the Grand Challenge remains unmet. You can learn more about the Alexa Prize, teams and results of the first two years of competition here.

Through the Alexa Prize competition, participating universities are able to conduct research and test hypotheses with real customer interactions through their socialbots. Alexa users interact with socialbots via the “Alexa, let’s chat” experience, engage in a live conversation and leave ratings and feedback for teams at the end of their conversations, which the teams use to evaluate and improve their systems.

Earlier this week it was announced that the next round of the Alexa Prize Socialbot Grand Challenge will open for interested students and faculty, from Universities across the globe on March 4, 2019. There will be and announcement of a global roadshow  in February that will take place in select cities in the US and abroad. The content from those sessions will be available on-demand for any student or faculty member to help them learn more and be positioned to submit a compelling application. The application period for the Alexa Prize runs from March 4 – May 14, 2019, we will be launching tools, and resources that will help prepare teams for building and delivering a winning application.