How Voice Assistants Are Responding to Election Result Updates

Anyone starting a morning routine with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri on Wednesday heard the latest updates from the Associated Press or an article read out to them from Reuters in a Flash Briefing depending on their individual choices. No voice assistant platform wants to face accusations of misinforming users, so the lack of definitive answers on the final tally in the elections is not surprising. The fact that all of the major voice assistants chose the AP as their main source for updates is a consensus worth noting. The AP makes a point now of being cautious in announcing who has won, especially with an occasional lapse requiring them to retract an announcement. Even so, it may just be that wire services like the AP and Reuters are more trusted by U.S. customers.

The other notable aspect of how the voice assistants are responding is that they all make sure to include percentages of uncounted votes to highlight how the final results are still taking shape. The consistency in sources and form of responses is probably a coincidence, but with a lot more people likely to use voice assistants as a news source in the next election, we may be seeing the foundation of a standard all of the platforms can get behind to avoid controversy.

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