Amazon plans to offer Alexa an AI overhaul, monthly subscription price

Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the associated fee of the technology, in response to individuals with knowledge of Amazon’s plans. 

The Seattle-based tech and retail giant will launch a more conversational version of Alexa later this 12 months, potentially positioning it to raised compete with recent generative AI-powered chatbots from corporations including Google and OpenAI, in response to two sources acquainted with the matter, who asked to not be named since the discussions were private. Amazon’s subscription for Alexa won’t be included within the $139-per-year Prime offering, and Amazon has not yet nailed down the worth point, one source said.

Amazon declined to comment on its plans for Alexa. 

While Amazon wowed consumers with Alexa’s voice-driven tasks in 2014, its capabilities could seem old-fashioned amid recent leaps in artificial intelligence. Last week, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, with the potential for two-way conversations that may go significantly deeper than Alexa. For instance, it could translate conversations into different languages in real time. Google launched an analogous generative-AI-powered voice feature for Gemini. 

Some interpreted last week’s announcements as a threat to Alexa and Siri, Apple‘s voice assistant feature for iPhones. NYU professor Scott Galloway called the updates the “Alexa and Siri killers” on his recent podcast. Many individuals use Alexa and Siri for basic tasks, corresponding to setting timers or alarms and announcing the weather.

The event of latest AI chatbots in recent months has increased the pressure internally on a division that was once seen as a darling of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, in response to the sources — but has been subject to strict profit imperatives since his departure. 

Three former employees pointed to Bezos’ early obsession with Alexa, describing it as his passion project. Attention from Bezos resulted in additional dollars and fewer pressure to make a return on those funds immediately. 

That modified when Andy Jassy took over as CEO in 2021, in response to three sources. Jassy was charged with rightsizing Amazon’s business in the course of the pandemic, and Alexa became less of a priority internally, they said. Jassy has been privately underwhelmed with what modern-day Alexa is able to, in response to one person. The Alexa team apprehensive they’d invented an expensive alarm clock, weather machine and strategy to play Spotify music, one source said.  

For example, Jassy, an avid sports fan, asked the voice assistant the live rating of a recent game, in response to an individual within the room, and was openly frustrated that Alexa didn’t know a solution that was really easy to search out online. 

When reached for comment, Amazon pointed to the corporate’s annual shareholder letter released last month. In it, Jassy mentioned that the corporate was constructing a “substantial variety of GenAI applications across every Amazon consumer business,” adding that that included “a good more intelligent and capable Alexa.”

The team is now tasked with turning Alexa right into a relevant device that holds up amid the brand new AI competition, and one which justifies the resources and headcount Amazon has dedicated to it. It has undergone a large reorganization, with much of the team shifting to the unreal general intelligence, or AGI, team, in response to three sources. Others pointed to bloat inside Alexa, a team of hundreds of employees.

As of 2023, Amazon said it had sold greater than 500 million Alexa-enabled devices, giving the corporate a foothold with consumers. 

Apple, Amazon and Google were early movers with their voice assistants, which did employ AI. But the present wave of advanced generative AI enables way more creative, human-sounding interactions. Apple is predicted to unveil a more conversational Siri at its annual developers conference in June, in response to The Recent York Times. 

Those that worked on the Alexa team describe it as an amazing idea which will have been too early, and that it will be hard to show the ship around. 

There’s also the challenge of finding AI engineering talent, as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google recruit from the identical pool of academics and tech talent. Plus, generative AI workloads are expensive due to the hardware and computing power required. One source estimated the associated fee of using generative AI in Alexa at 2 cents per query, and said a $20 price point was floated internally. One other suggested it might must be in a single-digit dollar amount, which might undercut other subscription offerings. OpenAI’s ChatGPT charges $20 per 30 days for its advanced models. 

Still, they point to Alexa’s installed user base, with devices in a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of homes, as a chance. Those that worked on Alexa say the indisputable fact that it’s already in people’s living rooms and kitchens makes the stakes higher, and mistakes more costly if Alexa doesn’t understand a command or provides unreliable information. 

Amazon has been battling a perception that it’s behind in artificial intelligence. While it offers multiple AI models on Amazon Web Services, it doesn’t have a number one large language model to unseat OpenAI, Google or Meta. Amazon spent $2.75 billion backing AI startup Anthropic, its largest enterprise investment in the corporate’s three-decade history. Google also has an Anthropic investment and partnership.

Amazon will use its own large language model, Titan, within the Alexa upgrade, in response to a source.  

Bezos is amongst those that have voiced concern that Amazon is behind in AI, in response to two sources acquainted with him. Bezos remains to be “very involved” in Amazon’s AI efforts, CNBC reported last week, and has been sending Amazon executives emails wondering why certain AI startups are picking other cloud providers over AWS.