Leading Design for the “Alexa in Space” project at Amazon
Year
2021 – 2022
Services
Product Design, Creative Direction, Stakeholder & Vendor Management
Company
Amazon Alexa
Intro
I joined the (then) confidential “Alexa in Space” project—code-named Beagle—which aimed to send a space-hardened Alexa around the Moon, aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission. I was responsible for leading the “Beagle Alexa Customer Experience” (BACE) initiative, defining the overarching concept and customer-facing narrative that would introduce Alexa’s role in the mission and keep customers engaged throughout the ~26-day flight around the Moon and back. This included creating the mission-themed Alexa Skill, its multimodal launch experience, and the content strategy that would carry customers from pre-launch through splashdown.
Goal
The goal was to create a "BACE Skill" experience that introduced customers to the Artemis I mission, clearly explained Alexa’s role aboard Orion, and made it easy for them to follow the launch and stay engaged throughout the nearly month-long flight—ultimately driving sustained interaction, and reaching our internal target of at least one million customer engagements by mission's end.
Process
I began by analyzing patterns from Alexa’s most engaging customer interactions and used those insights to shape the "BACE Skill"—the mission-themed experience that delivered real-time updates such as mission day, spacecraft speed, distance from Earth, and key milestones. To secure stakeholder alignment, I created a series of pitch decks and visual concept materials to communicate the end-to-end vision to Amazon leadership as well as NASA and Lockheed Martin stakeholders. These presentations were instrumental in earning approval and the budget needed to produce the experience. With approvals in place, I sourced and managed a creative agency, wrote VO scripts, produced storyboards, and directed the video and animation work for all mission content. The experience was anchored by the golden utterance, “Alexa, take me to the Moon” which—prior to launch—triggered a cinematic trailer (audio-only for headless devices and animated for multimodal devices) followed by a prompt to opt-in for a launch reminder. On launch day, opted-in customers received notifications with links to the livestream, and throughout the mission, the Skill delivered daily real-time updates and “Virtual Crew Experience” sessions featuring celebrities interacting with Alexa from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. I partnered closely with an internal engineering team to build and test the Skill and personally wrote responses for more than 750 mission-related utterances.
Result
The experience significantly exceeded expectations: the BACE Skill earned a 67% opt-in rate (versus typical single-digit Alexa norms) and generated over 1.5M customer engagements—roughly 50% above our internal goal—making it both a standout customer-experience win and a key proof point in Alexa’s broader innovation narrative. I also attended a private launch event at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, representing the Alexa team and answering questions about Alexa’s involvement.