Digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are guided by an artificial intelligence designed to learn what they hear and therefore better the answers.
Part of this learning is based on the audio recordings of all conversations, useful to the internal system of the voice assistant to recognize the tone of voice and requests.
The fact, however, that all the things that are said to Alexa are always recorded by Amazon and stored, can give the chills to some people, who could legitimately ask themselves what happens to these audio recordings, if they are used to spy on us and, above all, if Alexa devices like L'Amazon Echo or Google Home devices are able to record anything we say, even if we are not using them.
These concerns were also fueled by some curious events concerning Alexa's voice assistant.
Looking for precedents of accidents and bugs of Alexa devices, in fact, you will find bizarre news such as that of the device that laughed alone or that which reported continuous recordings then sent to friends without their knowledge.
In these cases it was annoying but infrequent errors and malfunctions.
READ ALSO: Functions of the Amazon Echo, what it is used for and what it does
While in another article we had already said about how Google records and stores voice commands as audio files, what we are interested in knowing here, is what an Amazon Echo or any other device with Alexa voice assistant records and how to manage this conversation history.
It will therefore be possible to discover that Alexa does not record everything, but only what is said after recalling it with the activation command, furthermore we will be able to listen to everything spoken by voice to Alexa, all the voice commands given and anything that was said after calling " Alexa ".
To see the list of Alexa commands in a history you can use the Alexa app on Android and iPhone or even the Amazon website .
In the application, touch the icon with three lines at the top left of the screen to open the options menu, touch on the Settings menu and then on Account History .
On the Alexaprivacy website, on the other hand, just press the arrow under the box that says " Review entry history ".
Here, you will be able to browse all the commands required of Alexa, the titles of songs that you wanted to hear and also everything that was said after calling "Alexa".
For each element you can touch or click to find the play button that allows you to listen to the recorded audio.
When the text " Text not available. Audio not intended for Alexa " appears, it means that the Echo device did not understand what we were saying or when there was no intention to actually use it, but the listening command had been activated anyway.
Also in these cases the voice that spoke is recorded and can be listened to again.
Alexa history can be filtered by date, in order to find what was said on a given day.
If you want to clear the Alexa history, it is better to use the site from your PC, filter by week or by the last day or even to see the entire list since it was used the first time, so as to have a quick link that deletes all the history starting from the selected period.
Always from the site it is also easy to select various items to delete them, while on the app you can only delete individual recordings.
Amazon warns, however, that deleting the command history will completely reset the voice assistant's memory which could then give less precise answers.
Remember that Alexa uses audio voice recordings to be able to answer questions better and better, getting to know the user and creating different local profiles to improve recognition.
Amazon explains in its privacy policy that the Echo speakers do not record anything until they are activated by word (the Alexa command) and therefore everything that is said in a room is not recorded and no audio is saved unless you says the activation word or until you press the listen button.
READ ALSO: Configure a new Amazon Echo and Alexa settings
Part of this learning is based on the audio recordings of all conversations, useful to the internal system of the voice assistant to recognize the tone of voice and requests.
The fact, however, that all the things that are said to Alexa are always recorded by Amazon and stored, can give the chills to some people, who could legitimately ask themselves what happens to these audio recordings, if they are used to spy on us and, above all, if Alexa devices like L'Amazon Echo or Google Home devices are able to record anything we say, even if we are not using them.
These concerns were also fueled by some curious events concerning Alexa's voice assistant.
Looking for precedents of accidents and bugs of Alexa devices, in fact, you will find bizarre news such as that of the device that laughed alone or that which reported continuous recordings then sent to friends without their knowledge.
In these cases it was annoying but infrequent errors and malfunctions.
READ ALSO: Functions of the Amazon Echo, what it is used for and what it does
While in another article we had already said about how Google records and stores voice commands as audio files, what we are interested in knowing here, is what an Amazon Echo or any other device with Alexa voice assistant records and how to manage this conversation history.
It will therefore be possible to discover that Alexa does not record everything, but only what is said after recalling it with the activation command, furthermore we will be able to listen to everything spoken by voice to Alexa, all the voice commands given and anything that was said after calling " Alexa ".
To see the list of Alexa commands in a history you can use the Alexa app on Android and iPhone or even the Amazon website .
In the application, touch the icon with three lines at the top left of the screen to open the options menu, touch on the Settings menu and then on Account History .
On the Alexaprivacy website, on the other hand, just press the arrow under the box that says " Review entry history ".
Here, you will be able to browse all the commands required of Alexa, the titles of songs that you wanted to hear and also everything that was said after calling "Alexa".
For each element you can touch or click to find the play button that allows you to listen to the recorded audio.
When the text " Text not available. Audio not intended for Alexa " appears, it means that the Echo device did not understand what we were saying or when there was no intention to actually use it, but the listening command had been activated anyway.
Also in these cases the voice that spoke is recorded and can be listened to again.
Alexa history can be filtered by date, in order to find what was said on a given day.
If you want to clear the Alexa history, it is better to use the site from your PC, filter by week or by the last day or even to see the entire list since it was used the first time, so as to have a quick link that deletes all the history starting from the selected period.
Always from the site it is also easy to select various items to delete them, while on the app you can only delete individual recordings.
Amazon warns, however, that deleting the command history will completely reset the voice assistant's memory which could then give less precise answers.
Remember that Alexa uses audio voice recordings to be able to answer questions better and better, getting to know the user and creating different local profiles to improve recognition.
Amazon explains in its privacy policy that the Echo speakers do not record anything until they are activated by word (the Alexa command) and therefore everything that is said in a room is not recorded and no audio is saved unless you says the activation word or until you press the listen button.
READ ALSO: Configure a new Amazon Echo and Alexa settings
