In November last year, we announced the Alexa Skills Challenge: Multimodal. The challenge invited developers to create skills that use voice, visuals, and touch using the Alexa Presentation Language (APL), a new design language built from the ground up for creating voice-first, multimodal Alexa skills.

We want to thank everyone who participated in the challenge. It’s been incredible to see you learning APL so quickly and with passion, helping each other by sharing learnings, coming up with creative ideas, and building great multimodal skills.  

We reviewed hundreds of submissions, we’ve finally narrowed down the 10 finalists and we are excited to share with you. The review process wasn’t easy; we were amazed by the creative implementation of APL that offer great customer experience. As a reminder, great multimodal skills provide the following for the customers:

• Adapt skills to work on different devices. You can optimize your designs and experience based on the type of device to deliver the right experience, from focused personal information delivery on Echo Spot to communal, 7’ experiences on Fire TV.
• Add easily glance-able, complementary information. You can display images, text, and overlays to communicate requested information at a glance, and provide more detail than is possible with voice alone.
• Simplify navigation of large data sets. You can display large amounts of information and help people quickly review options and choose -- using scrolling and selection by voice or touch.
• Create immersive and delightful experiences. You can build engaging experiences that your customers can sit back and watch, or lean into to get things done.

Here are the 10 finalists we selected and that will move on to the next round. Congratulations to each finalist! Each finalist will take home $5,000 and continue to compete for the $20,000 grand prizes.

Fork On The Road: You can add up to four things for the fork to choose from, and the fork will help you make a decision . Try Fork on the Road.

Loop It!: You can create amazing sounding loops by choosing your favorite drum, bass, and melody loops. Try Loop It!

Poet Challenge: You can learn about British poetry by playing fun games. Try Poet Challenge!

Crazy Conversation: You will be given a clue that sounds like nonsense and you need to figure out what it is trying to say. Try Crazy Conversations!

Color Lab: The skill offers a fun way to teach kids colors by using visuals and Echo Buttons. Try Color Lab!

BrainPickers! Guess The Movie: Guess the movie based on the given clues, and pixelated images. Try BrainPickers! Guess the Movie!

Kings over Aces: Try this card game that's easy to play, yet almost impossible to master. Try Kings over Aces!

Running Clothes: Wondering what to wear on your next run? This skill takes the guesswork out of gearing up for your next run. Try Running Clothes!

Movie Classics: The skill allows you to watch some of the best classical movies that are hard to find otherwise. Try Movie Classics!

Red Riding Hood - Interactive story: What if the Big Bad Wolf didn’t eat Grandma? Find out for yourself. Choose your own adventures are back. Try Red Riding Hood – Interactive Story!

What’s Next

From March 16 through March 26, we will evaluate customer engagement with the finalist skills. Our panel of judges will evaluate the finalists to determine the winner of the $20,000 grand prize, and evaluate additional skills for the bonus prize categories. We will announce both the grand prize winner and the bonus prize winners on 12-April.

Try the Multimodal Finalist Skills!

Thank you again to everyone who participated and worked hard to submit an entry to this challenge. We really appreciate your passion and hard work. When you get a chance, please try each of the finalist skills and see how they used APL to create a rich and engaging voice-first multimodal experiences.