Is your Amazon Echo haunted? Viral video captures terrifying moment the smart speaker emits guttural sounds during a simple family bedtime ritual

Date:
Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:53:07 +0000

Description:
The new and improved Alexa+ seems to have got a bit too expressive in a counting task.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Alexa+ has turned a little
scary in one household A simple counting task enabled a creepy voice Some other users are reporting similar bugs in the AI If you're already worried about the potential dangers of AI chatbots , this one probably isn't for you: an Amazon Echo user has reported Alexa+ "breathing and making guttural
sounds" while engaged in the supposedly innocent task of counting to 40 (in Spanish).

There's video evidence on Reddit (via Android Authority ), and it's pretty spooky to listen to so only click the play button if you're sure you want to hear a disembodied AI-generated voice that sounds somewhat possessed. According to the user who posted the video, they asked Alexa+ to count up to 40, which prompted the strange sounds. It's not an ideal response, especially as there were two five-year-old kids listening who just wanted a simple countdown. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

Apparently, the original poster was then able to get the same thing happening on a separate Amazon Echo in another room. "Needless to say, the Alexas in my house are now unplugged and I've reported the whole thing to Amazon," they report. A little bit too expressive My Alexa started breathing and making guttural sounds while counting my kids to sleep. I have it on video. from r/amazonecho While it's possible that some kind of user error or AI fakery
has produced this video, it's odd that it would happen on two different devices and there's at least one other user in the Reddit thread saying they've experienced something similar. You may like Alexa+ now creates AI podcasts, but Spotify is helping you avoid them Studies show top AI models go to 'extraordinary lengths' to stay active Enough chit-chat: Alexa is done waiting for the agentic AI future I spoke to Amazon's Daniel Rausch to find out more

It's almost certainly down to a bug in Alexa+: the new and upgraded AI assistant is intended to be more conversational and more expressive, and in this case it seems to have gone too far (in the same way that AI chatbots can introduce hallucinations and tangents when writing out text).

When pushed, Alexa+ itself said that "something in my environment" must have caused the glitch, though it's not clear what that something might be.
Perhaps it's the ghost of Alexa past, which Alexa+ has now replaced. Get
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The Reddit reactions describe the speaker as "haunted", "terrifying", and in need of an exorcism, though the fix is likely to be no more complicated than
a tweak to the Alexa+ AI model from Amazon's side. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Today's best smart speaker deals Amazon Echo Studio (2025) 219.99 View See all prices Apple HomePod (2nd Gen) 299 View See all prices We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/home/smart-speakers/is-your-amazon-echo-haunted-vira l-video-captures-terrifying-moment-the-smart-speaker-emits-guttural-sounds-dur ing-a-simple-family-bedtime-ritual


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