Amazon’s Alexa AI assistant is down for countless users this morning. While the company has yet to issue any kind of official notice or response, reports on the internet from all over the world indicate that Alexa is very incredibly delayed answering questions or is unable to connect to the network to respond at all.
This doesn’t appear to be a localized issue, as complaints are currently streaming in at an alarming pace on Down Detector, where thousands of users are having trouble with their Echos and Echo Dots. I tried to ask my Echo about the weather right after I read about the issues, but after lighting up green and blue for nearly a full minute, the Echo eventually flashed red and told me that it was unable to connect to my network (and my network is fine).
TechCrunch points out that some Alexa services are still available through the Alexa app, so if you desperately need to interact with your smart home through Alexa, you can do so on your phone. And while Alexa is frequently failing, I was able to get a response to my question about the weather after a long delay moments ago.
Through all of this, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Amazon ran an entire ad campaign about Alexa losing her voice during the Super Bowl this year. While this probably isn’t some kind of brilliant viral marketing, it does make the ads significantly funnier than they were when they aired on TV last month.
