The Church of England’s Alexa “skill” was asked more than 75,000 questions during its first year, data from the church has revealed.
The “skill” – which works as a function of the the Alexa app on smart phones, personal assistants or web browsers – was launched last year with the ability to answer inquiries about prayer, the Christian faith and church locations.
GRAPHIC: Courtesy Church of England.
The data showed that the highest numbers of people were using the skill during the evening – a fact which prompted the release of more prayers on the skill specifically related to mealtimes and evenings – and that during a typical week, 40 per cent of inquiries made via the skill related to “Say a prayer”, 31 per cent to “Explore the Christian faith” and seven per cent to “Where is my local church”.
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said the aim of the Alexa skill was “to help users to know more of the love of Jesus Christ, to enable regular churchgoers and those exploring faith to connect with God in another way and at a time that’s right for them”.
“My hope and prayer is that this will encourage many more people to make a pattern of daily prayer and Bible reading the foundation of their lives as disciples of Jesus Christ,” he said.
The skill, to which more family-oriented prayers were added during the year as well as a range of videos which aim to bring the Christian faith to life and showcase the social action work of churches, will soon be updated with the daily prayer from the ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ prayer initiative.
Adrian Harris, head of digital at the Church of England, said that it was hoped the content developed for the skill would be available on other platforms in the coming months.
“UK smart speaker usage doubled in 2018 to more than 9.5 million monthly active users so we’re excited about the opportunities to use the technology to help people grow in their Christian faith, to bring people to faith and to connect them with a local church.”
According to the church, the skill has been given an average of 4.2 out of five stars on the Alexa store.
