The Alexa Prize

$2.5 Million to Advance Conversational Artificial Intelligence

September 2016 – November 2017

Alexa, Let's Chat

Get an inside peek at the Alexa Prize, Amazon's university competition to advance conversational AI. The socialbots are works in progress, and your conversations and feedback will help students develop a more engaging AI. Provide your verbal rating directly within the skill and help determine which teams make it to the finals.

To try one of the socialbots: say “Alexa, let’s chat.”

To end a conversation: say “Stop.” You will then be prompted to provide a verbal rating and feedback.

To provide your rating and feedback: When prompted, provide a rating from 1 to 5 stars (5 being the highest) on how you feel about speaking with that socialbot again. You will then be asked for your feedback, which the teams will use to improve their socialbot experience.

To try another socialbot, just start over again by saying “Alexa, let’s chat.”

Amazon Selects Teams to Compete for Inaugural $2.5 Million Alexa Prize

Amazon will sponsor 12 university teams to compete in the 2016-2017 Alexa Prize. This year’s inaugural competition focuses on the grand challenge of building a socialbot that can converse coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.  The sponsored teams will receive a $100,000 stipend, Alexa-enabled devices, free Amazon Web Services (AWS) services to support their development efforts, and support from the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) team.

Amazon received over one hundred applications from leading universities across 22 countries.

All applications were reviewed and evaluated based on the following criteria: the potential scientific contribution to the field, the technical merit of the approach, the novelty of the idea, and the team’s ability to execute against their plan.

Congratulations!

Meet the 2016-2017 Sponsored Teams

Meet the 2016-2017 Unsponsored Teams

The team with the highest-performing socialbot will win a $500,000 prize. Additionally, a prize of $1 million will be awarded to the winning team's university if their socialbot achieves the grand challenge of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.

Beginning in April 2017, as part of the research and judging process, millions of Alexa customers will have the opportunity to converse with the socialbots on popular topics. The feedback from Alexa users will be a factor in selecting the best socialbots to advance to the finals. Winners will be announced at a special session at re:Invent 2017, a global cloud computing conference hosted by Amazon Web Services.

Key Dates

  • April 2017

    First Alexa Customer Feedback Period Begins

  • August 2017

    Finalists Announced

  • Final Alexa Customer Feedback Period Begins

  • November 2017

    Competition Concludes & Winners Announced

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