Amazon’s Alexa Gets a Major AI Upgrade in the Chatbot Era
Amazon is overhauling its Alexa voice assistant, stepping into the generative AI era with Alexa+, a new subscription service. The move aims to keep up with the evolving landscape of AI-powered virtual assistants and revitalize Amazon’s Echo business.
Alexa+, unveiled Wednesday, marks a significant shift for the popular voice assistant. Key updates include a more conversational interface, personalized responses based on user preferences, and the ability to handle certain tasks, such as booking concert tickets, according to Amazon. The service will cost $19.99 per month, but will be free for Amazon Prime members, offering early access next month.
This upgrade represents Amazon’s answer to the rise in popularity of AI-infused virtual assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, which have gained traction since 2022. Tech giants, including Amazon, are striving to develop the next generation of AI chatbots: AI agents. These agents, unlike simple chatbots, are designed to take actions on a user’s behalf, from online shopping to handling real-world tasks, like returning a package or scheduling repairs.
Amazon is positioning Alexa+ as a central element of this strategy.
What Alexa+ Can Do
Amazon is emphasizing Alexa’s new capacity to integrate a user’s personal data, including the apps and services they use, as a key differentiator from conventional chatbots like ChatGPT. However, Apple and Google are taking comparable approaches with their respective virtual assistants as well.
In a preview video, Amazon demonstrated Alexa+ performing tasks, such as providing a user with the number of books they’ve read in a year, reserving their regular Friday night dinner spot, or notifying them when tickets for their favorite artist go on sale. It achieves this through the use of a person’s history and data across apps, services, and devices and can recall user preferences, the company says.
Alexa+ will also be able to answer questions about a user’s surroundings. Using an Echo Show device, which is essentially the tablet version of the Echo with a camera, Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices, asked Alexa whether the crowd at the event “looked pumped” after pointing the camera at the audience. “From what I can see, those 250 folks look pretty fired up,” it replied.
Panay also indicated that Alexa+ is designed to better comprehend context and use more natural language. For instance, users will be able to say something like, “play music but don’t wake the baby,” instead of directing Alexa to lower the music volume.
Panay attributed Alexa’s transformation to developments in generative AI and large language models, the underlying technologies behind popular AI applications such as ChatGPT.
“While the vision of Alexa has been ambitious and remains incredibly compelling, until right this moment, we have been limited by the technology,” Panay said.
This reflects the strategies of Apple and Google with their virtual assistants. For example, Apple is updating Siri to answer questions based on personal data. Meanwhile, Google wants its Gemini assistant to act as an agent that can handle tasks.
Amazon’s strategy is not unique, but it is a much-needed upgrade that could help bring its decade-old assistant up to par with its competitors.
Panay added that Alexa+ has been trained to understand a user’s tone and environment to adapt its response accordingly.
Boosting Amazon’s Struggling Echo Business
Amazon’s original Echo was surprisingly successful when it first launched in 2014. However, in the decade since Alexa entered our living rooms, Amazon, even though it bet on cheap hardware to make Alexa the dominant voice assistant, has struggled to monetize its hardware division.
Additionally, Amazon’s business model for the Echo stalled as well, as the company expected people to use the device to increase their Amazon purchases. However, consumers ultimately used the Echo primarily for tasks like setting timers and listening to music instead of shopping, and Amazon has reportedly lost billions of dollars on its Echo business, according to The Wall Street Journal. Amazon clearly hopes that Alexa+ will change this.
At the same time, generative AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT started to gain popularity in late 2022, threatening legacy voice assistants like Alexa and the Google Assistant.
One prospective advantage is how Alexa has integrated with the company’s devices and services, such as Fire TVs and Ring cameras. Users can ask Alexa for information about activity around the house while they’re away, or whether anyone took the dog out. Plus, if it’s successful, Alexa+ could encourage more consumers to subscribe to Amazon’s profitable $15-per-month Prime service.
Amazon, which unveiled the long-awaited update in 2023, made the announcement during an event in New York City.
