Amazon Has $2.5 Million ‘Alexa Prize’ for Student Who Can Build Intelligent Chatbot

Amazon has a new annual competition targeted at university students. The “Alexa Prize” challenges students to build a chatbot for Alexa, the company’s artificial intelligence engine.

Amazon this year wants the chat bot to be able to converse coherently for 20 minutes about pop culture and recent events. Up for grabs is a grand prize of up to $1.5 million and total prizes worth $2.5 million.

Amazon this week joined Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and IBM to found a partnership on advancing AI in society.

“We’re in a golden age of machine learning and AI,” said Ralf Herbrich, the director of machine learning at Amazon. “This partnership will ensure we’re including the best and the brightest in this space in the conversation to improve customer trust and benefit society.”

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