But there’s a good reason that companies haven’t gotten in on the conversation. Alexa is young and confusing, and its invisible platform, which doesn’t have the universally understood directives (like, say, a back-button) that allow web pages to be easy for anyone to understand, makes it difficult for brands to get a lay of the land. To developers and consumers alike, Alexa is still an enigma. Though most Amazon Echo owners engage their device multiple times a day, they’re typically repeating the same three or four tasks, according to James McQuivey, a principal analyst for ForresterTech.

Even Amazon is continuing to figure out new uses for Alexa—just last month, the company launched a new initiative to adapt the tool for use at work. Cody Simms, a partner at the startup accelerator Techstars, predicts that the experimentation will continue until developers identify a transformative experience: something that shifts the technology from a toy to a powerful tool, the way search engines shaped the internet. “We’re still in the process right now of people even figuring out what those sort of killer experiences are,” Simms says. “We’re starting to see companies really experiment with interesting use cases around voice.”

Once brands do something innovative with a vocal interface, it’s hard for their peers to spot them and adapt. “It’s not like you can turn on the television on Thursday night and see what your competitor’s ads are like,” says McQuivey. Unlike the App Store, which allows you to see screenshots and features for each app, Alexa’s skills don’t offer much ability to explore. To access a bank’s skill, for instance, you have to have an account there. “No one really knows what else is going on here from any of their competitors, or any of their peers, or the brand leaders they want to follow,” McQuivey says. “It's just making it all very murky.”

There’s another obstacle. Brands seeking to reach us on our devices have defaulted to the same method: interruption. But Amazon has already eliminated that option for Alexa—and wisely so. As users, we’ve been conditioned not to tolerate interruptions from our vocal assistants. Voice technology is designed to give us the information we want, when we want it. To build its critical mass, Amazon knows not to mess with a traditional ad. The first time Alexa piped up to tell you about something you didn’t ask for, the device would likely find a new home in your backyard.

That’s why, this spring, Amazon launched a restrictive ad policy that bans third-party ads from skills, unless those skills stream content. Instead, Amazon is encouraging innovations by subsidizing the developers themselves. (In a statement to Backchannel, Amazon explained that the approach “is focused on delivering a delightful experience for customers, and exploring ways for developers to monetize skills while maintaining the best possible experience for our customers.”)

That move was bad news for VoiceLabs, a company that launched the world’s first ad network for voice assistants. VoiceLabs’s experiment, called Sponsored Messaging, shut down shortly after Amazon’s policy change. The company’s CEO, Adam Marchick, believes that the many brands and developers who were interested in the network proves that the idea was good, even if the ecosystem didn’t support it. “I believe there will be advertising,” Marchick says. “But I believe that Amazon and Google will want it to be viewed as additional content, not pop-up ads. How that manifests will be a good question.”

So far, the only way in is to innovate. Without the option of interruption, third parties will have to create an experience of their own. Nithya Thadani, CEO of digital consultancy RAIN, says that to do so effectively, brands will have to identify a utility that they can provide users—be it entertainment, content, or a transaction. “You want to build a skill or a voice experience that’s going to bring people back,” she says. “And we have found that the ones that are providing real utility are the ones that do that.” Campbell’s Kitchen, for instance, provides dinner recipes that can be read aloud as you cook, while Tide’s can answer questions on how to get out the most persistent stains from clothing. These first iterations may not be sexy, but they lay a foundation for brands to navigate a new environment. Thadani likens this approach to the tortoise and the hare. “Brands who are really doing this well are kind of thinking about this as the long game and understanding that we’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg,” she says. “The goal right now is to learn as much as possible, build engagement with customers, and start to make connections...rather than rushing to a fully formed solution.”

Whereas Thadani didn’t detect an interest in voice from brands six months ago, “today it’s certainly on the radar of a lot of clients,” she says. Meanwhile, Pat Higbie, the CEO of XAPPmedia, has been busy experimenting with companies like Progressive and National Geographic. His company is broadening its services beyond audio advertising to “media and marketing powered by voice” by building experiences for brands. “You’ll see more and more monetization things happening in 2018,” Higbie says, “And then it will be a full-on gold rush in 2019.”