By: Nick Gambino
Amazon held an event this week and as we predicted they unveiled the newest AI-powered version of their digital assistant called Alexa+
Bringing AI into the mix means Alexa is about to get a whole lot smarter and will even become a better conversationalist. This latter issue has plagued voice assistants like Siri since their inception. It’s hard to think of something as an assistant if they can’t have a proper back and forth.
But beyond a more conversational Alexa, this also brings generative AI to Amazon devices. The ability to generate is a big game changer for Alexa. Until now, it was little more than a researcher and handler of simple tasks. Now it can juggle multiple requests at once and even come up with some of its own.
It’s not surprising or even unexpected that Amazon would introduce an AI Alexa. They weren’t necessarily going to be the first to do something like this with AI, but once the tech really started to cook, they were always going to jump on that runaway train.
“Up until a couple years ago, it was pretty difficult to invent with AI, and that changed with the arrival of foundational models and generative AI,” Andy Jass, the CEO of Amazon, said at the event this week. “This made the technology much more accessible, so people can see the power and magic of what generative AI can do.”
Alexa+ rolls out in the U.S. only in the next few weeks and will start with Echo Show devices which are Amazon’s Echos that include a video display. Specifically it will be available on the Echo Show 8, 10, 15 and 21.
The AI assistant is only free for those who have an Amazon Prime membership. It will cost $19.99 a month for those who aren’t members. But honestly, I doubt there are many people using Echo devices without a Prime membership.
Amazon announced AI integration with Alexa two years ago but quickly delayed any sort of public release as they dealt with technical issues. We’ll have to spend some time with it to see whether there are any flagrant, lingering bugs.
