Amazon #BeforeAlexa What did people do before Alexa? That’s the question at the heart of Amazon’s Super Bowl 2020 ad starring Ellen Degeneres and her wife Portia de Rossi. It shows the couple asking Alexa to turn down the thermostat, as they get ready to go out. After Ellen wonders what life was like before Alexa, we are taken to a weird montage of clips showing people throughout time in situations where humans with names starting with an “A” and “L” were asked to do the same kinds of things, that we ask Alexa to do today – only with slightly different results.