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Alexa+, a modified version of Amazon’s Alexa, was announced Wednesday, bringing the popular voice assistant to the age of artificial intelligence.
The new Alexa is more conversational, allowing users to incorporate personal preferences into their answers, and can handle certain tasks on someone’s behalf, such as booking concert tickets, says Amazon. The service costs $19.99 per month, but is free for Amazon Prime members and will be accessible early next month.
The new Alexa is Amazon’s efforts to compete with waves of AI-injection virtual assistants, including Openai’s Chatgpt and Google’s Gemini, which have been gaining popularity since 2022.
Amazon, like its rivals, is racing to build what Tech Giants believe will become the next iteration of AI chatbot: AI agents. Unlike simple chatbots, tech companies promise that these agents can take action, such as shopping or handling real-world tasks, by returning packages ordered online or calling someone to repair the stove.
Alexa+ is a big part of Amazon’s attempt to do exactly that, in addition to upgrading Alexa in the current chatbot era.
Amazon promotes Alexa’s new ability to incorporate the user’s personal context, such as the apps and services they use, as an important differentiator compared to chatbots like ChatGpt. However, Apple and Google have taken a similar approach to their own virtual assistants.
In the preview video, the company showed Alexa+ handling tasks, including telling users how many books they read this year, booking regular Friday night dinner spots, and warning them when concert tickets from their favorite artists become available.
This can do this by using someone’s personal history and data across apps, devices and services, and recall users’ preferences, the company says. Alexa
Alexa+ can also answer questions about users’ surroundings. Using an echo show device, a tablet-like version of the echo with a camera, Amazon’s device head Panospanai asked Alexa if the event crowd was “pumped up” after pointing the camera at the audience. “From what I can see, 250 people seem to be fired quite a bit,” he replied.
According to Panay, Alexa+ should be better at understanding contexts and more natural languages. For example, instead of asking Alexa to turn the volume down on the music, you could say something like, “I’ll play music, but don’t wake up the baby.”
Panay is attributed to relatively new technologies such as Generator AI and large-scale language models, both providing the foundation for popular AI apps like ChatGPT.
“Alexa’s vision is ambitious and incredibly persuasive, but up to this moment we have been limited by this technology,” Panay said.
This is similar to the approach that Apple and Google take along with their respective virtual assistants. For example, Apple updates Siri with the ability to answer questions based on personal data, while Google wants Gemini assistants to act as agents who can handle tasks on your behalf. Amazon’s approach isn’t unique, but it’s a much-needed upgrade that allows you to keep your 10-year-old assistant up to date with your rivals.
Panay also said that Alexa+ is trained to understand the user’s tone and environment and adapt the response accordingly.
Amazon’s original Echo was an incredible success when it debuted in 2014. However, in the decade since Alexa arrived in the living room, Amazon has struggled to monetize its hardware division.
Echo’s Amazon business model has also stalled. Because the company wanted people to use their devices to increase Amazon purchases. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, consumers have largely used echoes for tasks like setting alarms and listening to music, and more like listening to music rather than shopping on Amazon. With Alexa+, Amazon clearly wants it to change.
At the same time, chatbots powered by generative AI like ChatGpt have begun taking the spotlight in the second half of 2022, threatening last year’s voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant.
But one potential benefit is how Alexa is already integrated with company devices and services, such as Fire TV and ring cameras. Users can ask Alexa what happened around the house when they weren’t home, or if someone had taken out the dog. Furthermore, if successful, Alexa+ could encourage more consumers to sign up for Amazon’s beneficial $15 per 15 months Prime service.
Previewing the much-anticipated update in 2023, Amazon made the announcement during an event in New York City.
This story has been updated with additional information and context.
