What Amazon’s Alexa will tell us in 2019

A motorcycle helmet? Yep, that works with Alexa. The Rachio 3 sprinkler controller? That, too. How about that guy over there playing a Roland keyboard? OK, we’re going to be here all day if we keep doing this. Amazon’s Alexa booth at last week’s CES tech show in Las Vegas emphasized one point to death: If electricity runs through it, it can work with the Alexa voice assistant. The centerpiece of the bathed-in-Alexa-blue booth was an Audi e-tron sedan beneath a giant circular billboard filled with voice commands, including “Alexa, how’s the traffic to the airport?” and “Alexa, buy air freshener for my car.” Just around the corner in the Sands Expo, in a far less flashy meeting room, Pete Thompson, vice president of Alexa Voice Service, outlined some of Amazon’s plans for the digital assistant in the new year, including making Alexa a default feature in new devices and appliances. “I think about the kid that walks up now to any screen and touches it because they just assume it’s a touchscreen,” he said. “They’re gonna walk up to devices and just start talking to them, and if it doesn’t respond, they’re gonna be like, what the heck is it broken?” Now playing: Watch this: Amazon Alexa doubles down on cars at CES 2019 in Las… 1:13 To fulfill that vision, Amazon will need to convince a lot more people they need Alexa, which dominates the smart speaker market worldwide. As of now, 32 percent of Americans own a smart speaker,…