King’s coronation among top queries for Amazon’s Alexa in 2023

13 December 2023, 00:04

Royal reception for planners of late Queen�s funeral and the coronation
Royal reception for planners of late Queen�s funeral and the coronation. Picture: PA

Questions about the coronation have been revealed to be among the most popular asked of the virtual assistant by UK users over the last year.

Questions about the King’s coronation, Elon Musk’s net worth and hit films Barbie and Oppenheimer were among the most asked of Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, over the last year.

The tech giant said “when is the king’s coronation?”, “how old is King Charles?” and “how many birthdays does the king have?” were among the top queries from Alexa users in the UK during 2023.

The coronation has been a common theme for online searches across platforms this year, with Google revealing on Monday that “when is the coronation?” was the most searched for ‘when’ question of the year via Google’s search engine.

Barbie European premiere and photocall – London
Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie starred in Barbie, which was the subject of some of the top film-related questions by Alexa users in 2023 (Ian West/PA)

Elsewhere in Amazon’s figures, major film releases Barbie and Oppenheimer were the subject of the top film-related questions, with Alexa users asking “when did Barbie come out?” and “how long is Oppenheimer?”.

Ed Sheeran was named as the most-played artist via Alexa, ahead of Taylor Swift, Lewis Capaldi and Elvis Presley, while Flowers by Miley Cyrus was the most-played song of the year, with the US singer’s Endless Summer Vacation also named as the most-played album, ahead of Harry’s House by Harry Styles.

To mark the release of the data, Amazon worked with British Beano cartoonist Nigel Parkinson to create a first Alexa Annual, showing the various top search results in the style of a classic comic yearbook.

An image of a page from Amazon's Alexa Annual, created by Beano cartoonist Nigel Parkinson to show some of the year's top Alexa requests in comic form
Beano cartoonist Nigel Parkinson has turned some of the year’s most popular Alexa requests into a comic yearbook (Amazon/PA)

Meryem Tom, Alexa UK and Ireland country manager said: “From the more meaningful to the mundane and the downright quirky, Alexa’s most asked questions provides another fascinating snapshot of how customers in the UK use Alexa to learn, get help with tasks or ask for some quickfire entertainment.”

Amazon’s data also showed widespread interest in celebrities and sportspeople, with “how tall is Lionel Messi?”, “how old is Elton John?” and “who is Jennifer Lopez married to?” among the top people-related searches of the year alongside “what is Elon Musk’s net worth?”.

Alexa to search NHS websites
The top searches of Amazon’s Alexa for 2023 have been revealed (Andrew Matthews/PA)

With Alexa-powered smart speakers often found in home kitchens, Amazon revealed the most requested recipes from UK users, with Yorkshire pudding top, ahead of pancakes, banana bread, chilli con carne and apple crumble.

In addition, “sing Happy Birthday” was named the most requested “personality song”, ahead of requests for Alexa to beatbox and sing a song about dogs.

By Press Association

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