Millions of people ask Amazon’s Alexa questions about love. But when asked, “Alexa, what is love?” the globally recognizable engine of Artificial Intelligence had an underwhelming definition, “Sorry, I don’t have human love figured out quite yet.” As the Ad Council looked to flood culture with messages of unbiased love and to celebrate diversity in an effort to reduce bias and promote acts of inclusion, we updated Alexa’s definition of love. We went to the South Side of Chicago and spoke to everyday people of diverse race, age, sexual orientation and ability. We asked them to give us their definition of love, and how they use “acts of love” to make others who are not like them feel included and loved. We took their answers and programmed recordings into Alexa’s voice technology. Today, these are the voices you’ll hear when asking an Alexa-enabled device, “Alexa, what is love?”

RESPONSE 1

Dianne, a community leader and volunteer, “My love is in the safe space I create for Black women.”

RESPONSE 2

Cheer, software developer, immigrant, “Love is showing patience and understanding when someone is learning a new language.”

RESPONSE 3

Christopher, photographer, creative entrepreneur, “Love is when someone acknowledges how I identify.”

RESPONSE 4

Igor, filmmaker, immigrant, “Love is opening your doors to others without expecting anything in return.”

RESPONSE 5

Jim, tour guide, anti-bullying advocate, “We gotta look out for each other, that’s how we show love, we show love by being there for one another.”

RESPONSE 6

Peter, retired, ally, “Love is to be there for someone without judgment.”

RESPONSE 7

Rajee, product specialist, disability activist in media, “Love is making sure that I was just like any other kid.”

RESPONSE 8

Shujaa, student, organizer & activist, “Love is when true allies protect my voice.”

For the first time a response from Amazon's Alexa includes voices of everyday people. Through close collaboration with Amazon's Alexa personality team, we appended responses from an inclusive set of everday people to help Alexa understand all the diverse kinds of love and spread it to customers around the U.S.. To promote this innovation we filmed the process of collecting people’s voices and used the resulting footage to produce a documentary-style spot directed by award-winning filmmaker, Rodney Lucas. The film delves deeper into the lives of the people featured in Alexa’s new responses, and how acts of love have helped them feel more included. Amazon Ads was the nexus of our integrated channel strategy with a Fire TV home screen takeover, streaming TV spot, audio ads on Amazon Music and digital placements across the network. All assets presented the singular message driving people to ask, “Alexa, what is love?”