Ask the avatar

Alaska is cold and remote so the friendly folk at Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air have created an avatar to keep you company online.

Here's the full story on USA Today and the author of this report is clearly already quite taken with the 'bot' and her profile.

She's called Jenn and you simply type your question into the 'Ask Jenn' box and you get linked to the relevant info page.

Answers are in text as well as spoken unless you want to turn the sound off.

The alternative is you are told to reword your question because she doesn't know how to answer it.

It's a nice feature but raises the question - are avatars there to improve the experience, replicate the human experience or just a gimmick?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution