Amazon Reveals UK's Most Popular Alexa Questions of 2024: AI and Virtual Assistants in Focus

'What does AI mean?': Amazon reveals UK's most asked Alexa questions of 2024

From football to food to Taylor Swift, many of the most common subjects were what you expect - but others less so Virtual assistant units have become a staple in many UK households, telling people whether it is expected to rain, what the time is, and what the result in the football was. Among the most common used is Alexa, whose parent company Amazon has released the top questions and requests given to the software during 2024. Some were ones you would expect: "What is the value of bitcoin?"; "what is the population of earth?"; and "what does AI mean?". But some of the other most popular questions were slightly more leftfield, such as "how long do you cook a sausage for?", "who was Henry VIII married to?" and "how tall is Tom Cruise?". In the kitchen, a lot of people used Alexa as a virtual sous chef, fielding other food-related questions and helping with recipes for pancakes, yorkshire puddings and banana bread. Celebrities were the most discussed topic with Alexa, with David Attenborough and Paul McCartney joining Cruise in having their private lives inquired about by users. Monarchs and world leaders were also highly searched for. King Charles III's age, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak's height and the US president-elect Donald Trump's net worth were among the more commonly asked questions. Overall, Henry VIII attracted more questions than anyone else living or dead in relation to who he was married to. One name that dominated the searches was Taylor Swift. The US megastar appeared top of the list of questions regarding celebrities' heights and ages, as well as being the second-most searched for net worth, after Elon Musk, the richest person in the world. On top of this, Swift was the most-played music artist on Alexa, ahead of the likes of Eminem, Ed Sheeran, Adele and Beyoncé. She also had three of her albums included in the top five most played of the year, though they all fell behind Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet, which came first. Football dominated the sports side of the list, with all 10 of the sporting questions relating to Premier League clubs of the England national team. Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane and Erling Haaland were all highly searched players during the year and, with the love for the sport probably peaking in the summer during England's European Championship campaign, one of the most popular questions posed to Alexa was: "Alexa, is it coming home?"

The most popular Alexa questions of 2024 have left me worried about the state of humanity

The 'surprise' interactions list has left us deeply concerned Amazon has just revealed the most popular Alexa questions that UK fans have asked the voice assistant during 2024 - and it's an often unnerving peek inside the strange minds of Alexa users. The questions, which Amazon's split into categories such as 'people', 'net worth', 'spouses', 'recipes' and more, naturally contain some highly predictable entries that are similar to last year's. No-one will be surprised to hear that Taylor Swift topped the queries list, or that 'happy birthday' was the most popular song request. But nestled in among the bland entries are some telling and concerning details. For example, the top three entries in the 'surprise' Alexa interactions are 'fart', 'roast me' and 'marry me'. If this is a hint of how we're going to be interacting with the likes of ChatGPT Voice Mode, it points to a dark, troubled future for our poor voice assistants. On the plus side, the Konami code ('Up up down down left right left right B A') does make the top 10 in its category, so there is hope for us yet. But if we aren't taken down by a toxic, co-dependent relationship with voice assistants, the most popular Alexa recipe questions suggest that calorific intake may yet be our undoing. This year, pancakes took the number one spot from Yorkshire puddings on the recipe front. But new entries this year are 'cake pops' (a trend we thought had fizzled out in 2023) and 'mango ice cream'. Clearly, 2024 has been a year for comfort food. Perhaps most concerning, 'scrambled eggs' also makes the list, suggesting that we aren't going to going to be troubling an episode of Chef's Table anytime soon. While there are some strange entries in these Alexa 'most asked' questions, and accepting that they do only reflect the warped minds of UK users, I suspect that these queries will soon seem quaint compared to the conversations we'll soon be having with AI-powered assistants. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said "that kind of obsession is possible" when asked about the potentially worrying prospect of "perfect" AI girlfriends, and there's very much a dark side to AI friendships that claim to cure loneliness. Perhaps it's a good thing that Alexa AI has been delayed until 2025. Still, on balance, this year's most-asked Alexa questions show a largely positive relationship with Amazon's voice assistant, with "sing a song about dogs" coming in second on the most-requested songs and "thank you" incredibly topping the 'personality' charts. Geographical quirks still exist, too, despite our increasingly globalized world, with Henry VIII beating Cat Deeley and Ed Sheeran in the UK to the top of questions about 'spouses' (possibly helped by a new series of Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light on BBC iPlayer). But the biggest takeaway is that Yorkshire puddings, last year's number one most-requested recipe, need to up their game in 2025 is they're to regain the top spot against new upstart queries like 'roasted cauliflower' and 'halloumi stuffed peppers'.