SMART SPEAKER technology may be making life easier for countless millions across the planet but spare a thought for the Irish.
According to new research, an alarming number of Amazon Alexa virtual assistants struggle to comprehend the average Irish accent and has an even worse time with Northern Irish accents.
A study conducted by Uswitch.com found that AI devices often find it difficult to make sense of commands spoken by the people of Dublin and Belfast.
According to the research, the Dublin accent is the 11th hardest to understand in the UK and Ireland.
To put that ranking in some perspective, the Irish accent was ranked as harder to understand than the Manchester and London accent.
It get even worse north of the border, with the Belfast accent ranked among the top five hardest to comprehend.
People from some 30 cities across both countries were recorded asking their smart devices ten common questions.
In each instance, they were given a score out of 10 for voice clarity.
The study also factored in the number of searches people in each of these cities made for the question: “Why doesn’t Alexa/ Google understand me?”
Incredibly, over a 1,000 Dubliners a month ask Google “Why doesn’t Alexa understand me?”.
The voice assistant study also found the AI struggled to understand while the voice 40% of commands made in the distinctive Irish accent during the experiment.
Belfast accents fared even worse with over 1,300 searches for “Why doesn't my Alexa understand me?” recorded.
The city also scored negatively in the voice clarity test, suggesting respondents with Northern Irish accents had issues when asking their assistant basic commands.
Despite the damning stats, Irish and Northern Irish folk can take some solace from the fact the Cardiff accent ranked as the hardest for the AI technology to understand with the Glaswegian accent second.
