Amazon Launches $2.5 Million AI Contest for College Students

A new contest from Amazon aims to accelerate the field of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) and make its Alexa voice assistant even more chatty. The inaugural Alexa Prize contest challenges university and college students around the world to develop a “socialbot” that can that can hold a conversation with a human for 20 minutes.

Students will use the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) to build their socialbots. They will advance several areas of conversational AI, including “knowledge of acquisition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, context modeling, commonsense reasoning and dialog planning,” according to the Amazon announcement.

Amazon will award the following prizes:

  • Up to 10 teams will receive a $100,000 stipend, Alexa-enabled devices, free AWS services and support from the ASK team;
  • A $500,000 prize for the team that creates the best socialbot; and
  • A $1 million grand prize for the winning team’s college or university if they build a bot that can hold a coherent and engaging conversation “on popular topics” with a human for 20 minutes.

Teams can enter the contest between Sept. 29 and Oct. 28. On Nov. 14, participants will be announced and the competition will begin. 

To learn more about the Alexa Prize, visit the contest site.

About the Author

Sri Ravipati is Web producer for THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • university building with classical architecture is partially overlaid by a glowing digital brain graphic

    NSF Invests $100 Million in National AI Research Institutes

    The National Science Foundation has announced a $100 million investment in National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes, part of a broader White House strategy to maintain American leadership as competition with China intensifies.

  • black analog alarm clock sits in front of a digital background featuring a glowing padlock symbol and cybersecurity icons

    The Clock Is Ticking: Higher Education's Big Push Toward CMMC Compliance

    With the United States Department of Defense's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification 2.0 framework entering Phase II on Dec. 16, 2025, institutions must develop a cybersecurity posture that's resilient, defensible, and flexible enough to keep up with an evolving threat landscape.

  • blue AI cloud connected to circuit lines, a server stack, and a shield with a padlock icon

    AI Security Controls Lag Behind Adoption of AI Cloud Services

    Nearly nine out of 10 organizations are already using AI services in the cloud — but fewer than one in seven have implemented AI-specific security controls, according to a recent report from cybersecurity firm Wiz.

  • Training the Next Generation of Space Cybersecurity Experts

    CT asked Scott Shackelford, Indiana University professor of law and director of the Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance, about the possible emergence of space cybersecurity as a separate field that would support changing practices and foster future space cybersecurity leaders.