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Amazon Amazon plans to upgrade its 10-year-old voice assistant Alexa with generative artificial intelligence and charge a monthly subscription fee to cover the cost of the technology, according to people with knowledge of Amazon’s plans. That’s what it means.
The Seattle-based technology and retail giant plans to launch a more conversational version of Alexa later this year, potentially making it more competitive with new generative AI-powered chatbots from companies like Google and OpenAI. Two people familiar with the matter said that there is a sexual relationship. They requested anonymity because the discussion is private. Amazon’s Alexa subscription will not be included in the $139 annual Prime service, and Amazon has not yet determined the price, one source said.
Amazon declined to comment on its plans for Alexa.
Amazon wowed consumers with Alexa’s voice-driven tasks in 2014, but that feature may seem outdated given recent leaps in artificial intelligence. Last week, OpenAI announced his GPT-4o, which has much deeper two-way conversation capabilities than Alexa. For example, you can translate conversations into different languages in real time. Google has launched a similar generative AI-powered voice feature for Gemini.
Some interpreted last week’s announcement as a threat to Alexa and Siri. appleAlexa and Siri are new voice assistant features on the iPhone. New York University professor Scott Galloway called the update the “Alexa and Siri killer” in a recent podcast. Many people use Alexa and Siri for basic tasks such as setting timers and alarms and predicting the weather.
The development of new AI chatbots in recent months has increased internal pressure on the department, which was once considered a favorite of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos since he left the company, people said. The company is said to be facing strict profit demands.
Three former employees pointed to Bezos’ early obsession with Alexa, describing it as his passion project. Bezos’ attention brought more money and less pressure to quickly recoup those funds.
That changed when Andy Jassy became CEO in 2021, three sources said. Jassy has been responsible for getting Amazon’s business right during the pandemic, and says Alexa has become a lower priority within the company. According to one source, Jassy is secretly overwhelmed by the capabilities of modern Alexa. One source said the Alexa team was worried that they had invented expensive alarm clocks, weather machines and a way to play Spotify music.
For example, when Jassy, an avid sports fan, asked the voice assistant for the live score of a recent game, it was obvious that Alexa didn’t know the answer, which can easily be found online, according to someone who was present. He reportedly complained.
When asked for comment, Amazon pointed out the following points about the company: annual shareholder letter It was released last month. In it, Jassy said the company is building “a significant number of GenAI applications across all of Amazon’s consumer businesses,” adding that this includes “an even more intelligent and capable Alexa.” Ta.
The team’s task is to turn Alexa into a device that can stand up to the new AI competition and be worth the resources and manpower that Amazon has put into it. Three sources said there was a major reorganization, with the majority of the team moving to the artificial general intelligence (AGI) team. Some have pointed to bloat within the Alexa team, which has thousands of employees.
Amazon announced that it will have sold more than 500 million Alexa-enabled devices as of 2023, giving the company a foothold with consumers.
Alexa, was it too early?
Apple, Amazon, and Google There were pioneers who adopted AI in voice assistants. But now, a wave of advanced generative AI is enabling far more creative and human-like interactions. Apple plans to unveil a more conversational Siri at its annual developer conference in June, The The New York Times.
Those who worked on the Alexa team say it was a great idea, but it may have been premature, and it will be difficult to pivot.
Like OpenAI, there is also the challenge of finding AI engineering talent. microsoft and Google hire from the same academic and technical talent pool. Furthermore, generative AI workloads are expensive due to the required hardware and computing power. One source estimated the cost of using generative AI on Alexa to be 2 cents per query, and said the company has an internal price tag of $20. Others suggested it would need to be in the single digits, which would undermine other subscription services. OpenAI’s advanced model of his ChatGPT costs $20 per month.
Still, they point to Alexa’s installed user base, which has devices in hundreds of millions of homes, as an opportunity. Those involved in Alexa’s development say the fact that Alexa is already in people’s living rooms and kitchens increases the risk, making mistakes more likely if Alexa doesn’t understand a command or provides unreliable information. He says it will cause a huge loss.
Amazon has been battling the perception that it is lagging behind in the field of artificial intelligence.Amazon Web Services offers multiple AI models, including OpenAI, Google, or Meta. Amazon spent $2.75 billion to back AI startup Anthropic, the company’s largest venture investment in its 30-year history. Google also has an investment and partnership in his Anthropic.
Amazon plans to use its own large-scale language model, Titan, in the Alexa upgrade, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Bezos is among those who have expressed concerns that Amazon is lagging behind in AI, two people familiar with him said. Last week, CNBC reported that Bezos remains “deeply involved” in Amazon’s AI efforts, sending emails questioning why some AI startups choose other cloud providers over AWS. It is said that the email was sent to Amazon executives.