For the last two years, I've been talking about how Alexa will connect to third-party apps/Skills based on a user's question, and the idea of having to remember app/Skill names would fade away. A major step towards that future was just announced today. developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/po…
Third-party Skills can now explicitly tell the Alexa service what they can understand and fulfill, so Alexa can match a user's request to a third-party skill without a specific name being invoked. They have some cute examples of how this can be used, like the one below. 
But what if the question isn't about crickets, but requesting a ride. Or booking travel. Buying auto insurance. Getting a mortgage. Needing a cleaning service, a handyman, a mechanic, even a lawyer. How valuable will it be for your Skill to be the one to handle those questions?
Now think about who is making that decision: Amazon. What kind of factors will influence those rankings? They haven't said, but I'd guess things like overall Skill usage, ratings, average session length. All the signs of a well-designed user experience.
Banks and insurance companies have been some of the earliest adopters of voice assistant platforms. This is why. The best designed experiences are being created by those who launched early, keep learning, and continue to iterate. Those who do will own those searches.
Voice assistants are leaving entire categories up for grabs, the same way SEO did in the early 2000s. Who is the next Yelp, or TripAdvisor? Maybe it's incumbents (Yelp is working with Alexa), or maybe not (TripAdvisor isn't). But big changes are underway.
