UPDATE: Amazon has explained why Alexa-powered speakers have been randomly bursting into laughter, to the shock of their owners.

“In rare circumstances, Alexa can mistakenly hear the phrase ‘Alexa, laugh’”, the company told TrustedReviews. To prevent anything similar from happening again in the future, Amazon is tweaking the laugh command.

“We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives, and we are disabling the short utterance ‘Alexa, laugh’”, the company added. “We are also changing Alexa’s response from simply laughter to ‘Sure, I can laugh’ followed by laughter.”

Original story continues below…

Amazon Alexa-powered speakers have got a fit of the giggles and it’s freaking out users.

The Echo-maker has acknowledged the issue which sees Alexa emit random laughs unprovoked by users, or in response to unrelated commands to turn out the lights.

Among those affected by the strange issue is Twitter’s @CaptHandlebar who posted the video below. His JBL speaker let out the laugh while tethered to an Echo Dot.

In a terse statement, Amazon said: “We’re aware of this and working to fix it.”

It’s currently unclear what’s causing the unnerving issue, but it sure is giving some Echo users the creeps. Some, unsurprisingly, chose to simply unplug her as a result.

Related: Amazon Echo problems

Buzzfeed broke the news earlier this week after users took to social media to report the strange anomaly.

Is your Amazon Echo speaker giving you the creeps? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.

Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, including Trusted Reviews. He's based in South Florida, USA. …