King’s coronation, Barbie and Elon Musk among top queries for Amazon’s Alexa in 2023

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.

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.

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?”.

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.