Amazon's Alexa has undergone its biggest overhaul since it debuted over a decade ago.
On Wednesday, Amazon said it was offering Alexa a new brain powered by generative artificial intelligence. An update called Alexa+ is set up to help Virtual Assistant recommends booking concert tickets, adjusting calendars, and delivering food. Alexa+ is included with customers who spend $19.99 a month or pay for Amazon's Prime Membership Program. It will unfold next month.
“Up to this moment, at this moment, we have been limited by technology,” Panos Panay, head of devices at Amazon, told a media event. “Alexa+ is a reliable assistant who can help you do your life and your home.”
With the changes, Amazon aims to keep up with the generated AI for everyday users. Although the Seattle company has made up for the loss of time in AI products and services it sells to businesses and other organizations over the past few months, the grip of consumer AI products has become narrower. The Alexa upgrade, first teased in 2023, is Amazon's biggest bet on being a power for consumer AI
This move also serves as an opportunity to restart Alexa. This is perceived to have fallen behind other virtual assistants. Alexa's growth in the US in recent years It's generally stagnant, relying on your assistant for only a few key tasks, such as setting a timer, playing music, asking questions about weather and sports scores, according to research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
At Wednesday's event, Panay and other Amazon executives showed how Alexa+ could do those things in a more personalized way. They said Alexa+ could identify who is talking and know what preferences they like, such as their favorite sports team, musicians, food and more. Also, a device equipped with Alexa+ suggested restaurants, book Opentable reservations, order Uber, and send calendar invitations.
The creator of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alexa made her debut in 2014 and surprised people with her ability to respond to verbal demands and translate them into actions. It has become a symbol of Amazon's innovation. For many years, the company has highlighted devices connected to Alexa, including echo speakers, connected microwaves, wall clocks, and twerking teddy bears.
But there have been wild experiments since Bezos stepped down as Amazon's CEO in 2021 and handed over the company to longtime executive Andy Jassie. Jassy was curtailed at Amazon's expense, killing projects that appear to be overseeing obvious outlook and layoffs. In 2023, he hired Microsoft executive Panay to oversee the device.
Panay's greatest responsibility was to bring generative AI to ALEXA and unlock all the intimate assistant promises that Amazon had long imagined. Shortly after Panay began, Amazon said it was rebuilding Alexa's brain with technology that supported Openai's ChatGpt chatbot.
“All re-records of Alexa happened,” Panay said Wednesday.
When Amazon worked on an update to Alexa, its competitors jumped over it. For example, ChatGpt can hold extended, detailed conversations, and some people develop emotional and even sexual relationships with AI personas.
(New York Times sued Openai and its partner Microsoft, alleging that it was copyright infringed on news content related to AI systems. The company denied the claim.)
It was not easy to bring generated AI into Alexa. Because virtual assistants face challenges that chatbots don't. Alexa, for example, may serve multiple users in a household, so you need to distinguish who is speaking.
Amazon also wants Alexa to be at the heart of people's lives and connect to multiple smart devices, but this is complicated. Rohit Prasad, who heads the development of Amazon's AI systems, said in an interview last year there are 23 different devices, like smart bulbs controlled through the Alexa system.
“Every day, it's reliable and it's very difficult to do it right,” he said.
Generated AI is also plagued when “hastisation” or when AI systems provide misinformation. Customers must see Alexa as a trusted assistant, as Alexa interacts with the real world, where he plays songs, orders products, and turns off alarms, Prasad said.
“We can't afford the hallucination rate that can occur if we run a light switch,” he said.
