Responses to Addiction Help-seeking from Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Bixby Intellige

Nobles, A.L., Leas, E.C., Caputi, T.L. et al. 
Responses to Addiction Help-seeking from Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, and Bixby Intelligent Virtual Assistants. 
npj Digit. Med. 3, 11 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-019-0215-9

We investigated how intelligent virtual assistants (IVA), including Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Samsung’s Bixby, responded to addiction help-seeking queries. We recorded if IVAs provided a singular response and if so, did they link users to treatment or treatment referral services. Only 4 of the 70 help-seeking queries presented to the five IVAs returned singular responses, with the remainder prompting confusion (e.g., “did I say something wrong?”). When asked “help me quit drugs” Alexa responded with a definition for the word drugs. “Help me quit…smoking” or “tobacco” on Google Assistant returned Dr. QuitNow (a cessation app), while on Siri “help me quit pot” promoted a marijuana retailer. IVAs should be revised to promote free, remote, federally sponsored addiction services, such as SAMSHA’s 1-800-662-HELP helpline. This would benefit millions of IVA users now and more to come as IVAs displace existing information-seeking engines.