At the end of this month, Amazon.com Inc.'s Alexa team will host a significant product launch event in New York City, where it is anticipated to unveil advanced artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for its popular digital assistant, Alexa.
It has been reported that Panos Panay, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services at Amazon, will attend the launch event on February 26. Amazon has confirmed that it will share the latest updates from the Alexa team during the event, although further details have not yet been disclosed.
For a long time, Amazon has been dedicated to enhancing the AI capabilities of its voice assistant, Alexa. In light of intense competition from companies such as OpenAI, Google LLC, and Microsoft Corp., whose AI products compete with Alexa to some extent, Amazon's efforts are particularly crucial.
According to Reuters, Amazon has sent out invitations to select media representatives and plans to hold a "decision-making meeting" on February 14 to prepare for the new version of Alexa's release.
The update potentially includes the "Let's Chat" feature, which was first demonstrated in the redesigned Alexa preview in 2023, showcasing an impressively realistic human conversation between the voice assistant and an Amazon executive. However, Amazon did not specify when users could experience these enhanced conversational features. Last year, Amazon canceled its traditional autumn launch event, typically used for announcing new products.
There are indications that the rollout of Alexa's new conversational AI features has been delayed, but this does not mean that Amazon has ceased its work. A report by CNBC in May last year stated that Amazon is developing new AI features for Alexa powered by its proprietary Titan AI model, planning to charge subscription fees for access to these features. Subsequent reports suggested that Alexa might also integrate Anthropic PBC's Claude series of large language models.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy mentioned during an earnings call in October last year that people could expect to see the new version of Alexa in the "near future." He indicated that his team was working on "rebuilding the brain of Alexa" using new foundational large language models.
A possible reason for the noticeable delay in launching Alexa's new AI features could be the comprehensive cost-cutting campaign initiated by Jassy in recent years. As part of this effort, Amazon has laid off thousands of employees, including many from the Devices and Services division responsible for developing Alexa.
Despite having hundreds of millions of users worldwide and being widely popular, Amazon has struggled to profit from the Alexa service. Amazon's traditional business model involves releasing new devices at extremely low prices and then promoting other products and services through these devices. However, this approach has not yielded good results in the device business, reportedly accumulating losses of billions of dollars over the years.
