Amazon presents Alexa so long -awaited renewed with characteristics of AI

Amazon On Wednesday he announced a long -awaited review of its Alexa digital assistant.

The renewed service, which Amazon calls “Alexa+”, works with generative artificial intelligence, Panay Panos, head of the company’s devices, he said on stage at an event in New York.

“From time to time, technology occurs and everything changes,” said Panay. “(Large language models) enter the stage and fundamentally change the way we think about AI … everything is shaken.”

Alexa+ can order inputs for concerts, reserve reservations for dinner and give recipe suggestions adapted to specific people in the home of a user, among other tasks.

The company has faced a growing pressure to update Alexa since Openai launched chatgpt at the end of 2022, surprising users with their ability to perform complex functions such as writing fiction and coding software. Suddenly, Alexa and other voice assistants as if they began to seem outdated, which led Amazon to consider a renewal.

“They recognize that they need to do it well and if they do well, then we are talking less about Openai vs. Anthrope and more of Alexa vs. Chatgpt,” said Tom Forte, senior Internet analyst at Maxim Group Consumer.

A Alexa subscription rate could help Amazon compensate for the High cost of the development of AIand make the digital assistant a more profitable business, he said Jitah UbraniA research manager who supervises portable devices and other devices in IDC. CNBC reported last May that Amazon was considering charging a monthly subscription rate for Alexa as part of an impulse to earn money with the service.

“Any generative AI system is observed, and everyone has very high development costs,” said Ubrani.

Amazon will need to step carefully with a Alexa service paid to avoid alienating Prime subscribers, who already pay $ 139 a year for loyalty membership, Ubrani said.

The company will also have to show users “what this new Alexa can do” to justify a subscription, he added. Operai offers a free version of Chatgpt, as well as a premium subscription for $ 20 per month. A paude chatbot paid version of Anthrope backed by Amazon costs $ 20 per month.

“His audience is already very large, so even the transition from a small part of those users to a subscription could bring them a good amount of money,” said Ubrani.

Run in 2014, Alexa was a passion project of the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos, who imagined that one day he could resemble a computer that knows everything as “Star Trek”. Amazon established an early advantage in voice software, and more than 500 million Alexa devices have been sold worldwide, the company He said in 2023.

But Alexa has not been as transformative as Bezos expected. Most consumers use their digital assistants for “very simple tasks”, such as verifying the weather or playing music, and mainly through smartphones, non -smart speakers, according to Forrester research.

Alexa is also not profitable. Amazon has never charged access to Alexa, but infused it in its intelligent speakers line, tablets and other devices, which have a notoriously price at a cost or lower than the cost to make them. The company expected Alexa’s interactions to direct consumers towards money spending on their other products and services, but that did not materialize.

Amazon has lost tens of billions of dollars in its device business, which includes Echo, Kindle, Fire TV and other products, The Wall Street Journal reported last July.

After the chatgpt launch, Amazon began working to review Alexa with generative technology to make it more conversational and useful. The company Demonstrated a Alexa in 2023 in 2023Although that new version of Alexa, called “Let’s Chat”, did not launch into the public.

The Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, ​​has analyzed closely, or In some cases it was suspendedSeveral of the most proven projects or loss of money from the company. That included the device and services unit, which houses Alexa. The unit underwent Two rounds of layoffs As part of the employment cuts throughout the company in 2022 and 2023, in which they were allowed to go to more than 27,000 Amazon employees.

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