According to insiders at Amazon, the new version of Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa will soon be running on Anthropic's chatbot Claude.
As early as June of this year, there were reports that Amazon was developing a "killer-level" chatbot called Metis to compete with ChatGPT, as many believed the company was falling behind in the AI race.
On Friday, August 30th, five anonymous sources told Reuters that Amazon's internal AI was "struggling" to handle requests and instead turned to Anthropic's Claude, as the software "sometimes took six to seven seconds to confirm and respond to prompts."
Claude is the chatbot developed by this startup company and is comparable to OpenAI's popular ChatGPT, serving as its direct competitor.
This collaboration is not without basis. Amazon invested $4 billion in Anthropic earlier this year, and the partnership between the two companies is currently under investigation by UK regulatory authorities for anti-competitive behavior. However, this marks a shift for Amazon from its usual preference for internal technology to control user experience and data, to collaborating with external companies.
What can Anthropic's chatbot bring to Alexa?
Alexa was launched nearly a decade ago alongside the Echo smart speaker and has been used since November 2014 for setting timers and reminders, answering simple questions, and playing music.
With enhanced AI, Alexa will be able to perform more complex requests. This may include engaging in full conversations with users and the ability to expand based on previous questions. Other typical uses for chatbots may include writing emails and generating images.
The new generative AI Alexa (reportedly named "Remarkable") is expected to be charged a monthly fee of $5 to $10. It is expected to be released before the October holiday season. The non-AI or "classic" assistant will remain free.
Charging this monthly fee is Amazon's attempt to make Alexa more profitable. The company has been pushing for users to make purchases through Alexa, but has not been successful.
Meanwhile, Apple is considering investing in OpenAI's competitor, Anthropic. The scale of the investment is currently unclear, but Apple has already partnered with the company to support its new Apple Intelligence feature.
