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Apparent Outage Leaves Amazon's Alexa ‘Having Trouble Understanding Right Now'

Alexa? Are you there?

Amazon Echo devices weren't working across the country Friday in what appeared to be an Alexa-related outage.

Some users who posed questions to the voice-activated and internet-connected personal assistants were being told the devices weren't working, with phrases like, "Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding right now. Please try a little later."

The website DownDetector, which tracks web outages, noted a spike in problems with the Alexa service starting at 9:39 a.m. ET. The number of reports dropped dramatically around 2:00 p.m. ET. 

NBC has reached out to Amazon to inquire about the possible outage.

Celebrities like Cardi B and Anthony Hopkins haven't started taking over for Alexa in real time, as Amazon's Super Bowl ad proposed.

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