The 2019 Alexa Conference Nearly Triples In Size Over Previous Year: A Post-Mortem Report

The 2019 Alexa Conference took place January 15-17 at the Chattanooga Convention Center, located in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event, produced by podcast network VoiceFirst.FM and supported by Amazon, was a success on a number of fronts and is poised to expand even further in 2020, when The Alexa Conference will return to Chattanooga January 13-16. (Super Early Bird registration is already available here.)

We owe immense gratitude to our sponsors and exhibitors and other partners who greatly contributed to the success of the event. We also owe immense gratitude to our own staff, led by Score Publishing's Director of Conferences Peggy Kilburn, Director of Business Development Ray Kyle, Exhibit Hall Director Lisa Comeau, PR Director Aaron Kiel, Chief Creative Officer George Otvos, Harry Pappas (Founder and CEO of the Intelligent Health Association) and our CFO Dean Haskell who all did fantastic work in delivering this event which so many got value from and enjoyed.

Advancing The Conversation

The 2019 Alexa Conference advanced the conversation regarding #VoiceFirst technology in meaningful ways.

The opening keynote, provided by Bret Kinsella of Voicebot.AI, firmly established the growth of voice assistants and smart speakers, cementing the importance of the conversations that were to follow about how best to leverage Amazon's Alexa ecosystem.

Breakout tracks spanning Storytelling, Healthcare, Consumer Marketing, and Smart Home covered a wide gamut of talks and topics, with plenary sessions selected to complement the breakout tracks. Organizations such as Mayo Clinic, X2 Games (founded by legendary entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell, pictured above, and Zai Ortiz), Magic + Company, SoundHound, and Amazon themselves provided a wealth of information about not just Alexa, but voice technology in general, that would be very useful to companies and individuals thinking about how they can get involved in the space.

In programming The Alexa Conference, we value independence - not every speaker may be pro-Amazon, pro-Alexa, or even pro-voice technology. But if they have a unique perspective that needs to be heard and contemplated by this audience, we will invite them.

Last year, a head attorney for the Federal Trade Commission came and spoke about the need for Alexa to be more secure, from a privacy and identity standpoint. This year, we invited the author of one of the most important articles about Alexa of the year - Melissa Campbell, of Boston's Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood - to speak about the perils of allowing advertising and marketing to children, which Amazon's Alexa ecosystem does. These talks and types of sessions will always have a place at The Alexa Conference, as it grows.

Amazon themselves balanced out the program, with a lunch keynote from Amazon's Paul Cutsinger and a one-of-a-kind panel showcasing The Alexa Fund and Alexa Accelerator programs that Amazon has cultivated to support the young ecosystem. (Pictured from L to R: Rodrigo Prudencio of The Alexa Fund, Abhishek Suthan of Pulse Labs, Milkana Brace of Jargon, and moderator Bradley Metrock)

The overall 2019 Alexa Conference keynote speaker was Kesha Williams, a software development manager for Chick-Fil-A and internationally-known speaker on technology's impact on women and minorities. She delivered a rousing, memorable talk which extolled Amazon's and Alexa's positive impact on her and her family's life, and candidly shared some of the speed bumps she's experienced along the way to where she is in her career.

Kesha's keynote was a fascinating and insightful capstone to an enjoyable and valuable Alexa Conference program.

(There is no shortage of 2019 Alexa Conference attendees wanting to discuss the conference proceedings further. For more in-depth discussion on the 2019 Alexa Conference program, read:

• Emily Binder's in-depth writeup here
• Katherine Prescott's writeup here
• Jargon CEO Milkana Brace's writeup here
• Applause's Emerson Sklar's post-conference summary here
• Oaktree Products' Dave Kemp's writeup here
• Teri Fisher's excellent summary podcast here
• Lucas Wonderley's in-depth writeup here
• Steven Goldstein's summary writeup here

The Alexa World Fair, Presented By VoiceFirst.FM

The 2019 Alexa Conference included the first exhibit hall to feature specifically, and exclusively, companies with products and services orbiting Amazon's Alexa ecosystem.

These exhibitors included:

#250 (booth 109)

Alexa in Canada / VoiceFirst Health (booth 517)

Amazon (booth 301)

Applause (booth 207)

Audioburst (booth 409)

Botmock (booth 206)

Capstone (booth 407)

ConverSight.AI (booth 413)

Earplay (booth 506)

Epson (booth 309)

Intelligent Health Association (booth 211-D)

Just AI (booth 306)

LifePod (booth 211-C)

Magic + Co. (booth 401)

Mayo Clinic (booth 211-A)

Modev (booth 406)

Monkey Media Software (booth 306)

Oaktree Products (booth 508)

Orbita (booth 211-B)

Privakey (booth 107)

Pulse Labs (booth 505/507)

Pylon.AI (booth 415)

SoundHound, Inc. (booth 307)

Tellables (booth 512)

The Startup Show (booth 509)

Voicebot.AI (booth 513)

VoiceFirst Weekly (booth 515)

VoiceMarketing (booth 511)

Voice Metrics (booth 408)

Voicify (booth 308)

Witlingo (booth 514)

X2 Gaming (booth 503)

The Alexa World Fair, Presented By VoiceFirst.FM, received high marks from attendees and exhibitors alike. We expect this exhibit hall component of The 2020 Alexa Conference to more than double in size.

Attendance, And The Attendee Mix

The 2019 Alexa Conference nearly tripled in size over its 2018 counterpart, clocking in close to 600 registered attendees.

These were highly-qualified attendees: executives, marketers, developers, and strategists on the front lines of their respective organizations in either developing voice experiences, or overseeing others within the organization working to develop Alexa skills and other related capabilities.

As we've noted on our podcast network VoiceFirst.FM, and specifically on This Week In Voice, companies that get involved with voice-first technology work to develop products or services which they believe will serve certain markets and sectors. However, as the story often goes, once companies get into these markets and gain some experience with voice, they soon learn that what they have developed often can serve other markets as well.

This is precisely why the format of The Alexa Conference is essential: it brings together a wide variety of normally disparate industries and sectors all under one roof, because with voice tech, and especially within Amazon's Alexa ecosystem, that is a necessary way of working and thinking.

The demographics at The 2019 Alexa Conference were:

2% Legal

2% Venture Capital

3% Non-profit

4% Press

4% Manufacturing

5% Utilities

6% Education (includes 2% students at collegiate or graduate level)

8% Logistics / Supply Chain

8% Hospitality

9% Finance / Banking

13% Media / Content

14% Healthcare

22% General Technology Products/Services

We were especially pleased at the healthcare turnout, as healthcare is an integral part of the #VoiceFirst technology discussion. We were curious how having healthcare professionals of every type, alongside every other type of industry and sector, would play within a conference setting, and the answer is: feedback from all parties was very positive.

The Alexa Awards, Presented By VoiceFirst.FM

For the first time, we held a nomination process for The Alexa Awards and presented several of the Winners with their trophies on Tuesday, late in the day after the main program for the day had concluded.

Gimlet Media's Chompers walked away with Skill of the Year, Earplay walked away with Developer of the Year, Voicebot.AI's Bret Kinsella was awarded VoiceFirst.FM Commentator of the Year, and Noelle LaCharite of Microsoft was awarded Executive of the Year, among many other awards announced.

Coverage

The press coverage of The 2019 Alexa Conference was strong, anchored by quality local coverage and robust national coverage.

The local coverage was led by Chattanooga's Times Free-Press (circulation 80k) producing a large front-page spread about The Alexa Conference, including lunch remarks from Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke.

Chattanooga's local TV covered the event as well, led by the superb coverage from NewsChannel 9's excellent Josh Roe:

National coverage was led by CNET (estimated annual 15M page views), which sent a reporter to The Alexa Conference and produced not one, but two articles on site.

The Alexa Conference was preceded by a successful content marketing strategy, headlined by our top-ranking article 50 States of Alexa.

The significant media coverage, in conjunction with our social media outreach and following, provided the spotlight for our speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, and partners we were hoping to achieve.

5 Startups In 5 Minutes

A new component of The Alexa Conference for this year was a startup competition featuring five startups doing interesting things within the realm of #VoiceFirst technology. These companies included ConverSight.AI, Voice First Tech, Virtual Concierge Service, #250, and Sonic Cloud.

These companies had to present, without slides, verbally for five minutes on their company, their vision, and their value proposition.

An all-star panel of judges included Rodrigo Prudencio (Alexa Fund), Patrick Givens (VaynerMedia), and Judy Mod (Innovations Domain).

Sonic Cloud won the competition, winning a $2,500 cash prize, an invitation to appear on VoiceFirst.FM, and complimentary passes to an upcoming VoiceFirst Event.

Live-Streaming Throughout

While the sessions themselves were neither filmed nor live-streamed - something we will fix for next time - massive credit goes to Ian Utile and Jake Uhlenkott (of The Future of Voice) for live-streaming interviews with exhibitors, attendees, and speakers throughout the show. Many of these interviews can be viewed on VoiceFirst.FM's YouTube channel here.

What's Next

The Alexa Conference will undoubtedly continue to grow, as the largest Alexa-specific event in the world and an important independent voice on Amazon's #VoiceFirst technology.

Our lineup of VoiceFirst Events leads us to California for The Voice of the Car Summit (Tuesday, April 9) and Texas for The Voice of Hospitality Summit (Tuesday, June 4). We hope to see some of y'all there.

Thank you to everyone who attended The 2019 Alexa Conference and shared that experience with us. We look forward to growing the event for next year in ways that will continue to add value to what you're doing with #VoiceFirst technology.