Amazon to Launch Alexa AI Revamp in February
By Greg Bensinger
(Reuters) - Amazon is set to release its long-awaited - and delayed - Alexa generative artificial intelligence voice service, said three people familiar with the matter, and has scheduled a press event for later this month to preview it.
Once released, it would mark the most significant upgrade to the product since its initial introduction accelerated a wave of digital assistants more than a decade ago.
Amazon on Wednesday sent press invites to an event to be held on Feb. 26 in New York featuring the head of its devices and services team, Panos Panay. A spokesperson said the event is Alexa-focused, while declining to elaborate.
The new generative AI-powered Alexa represents at once a huge opportunity for Amazon, which counts more than half a billion Alexa-enabled devices in the market, and a tremendous risk. Amazon is hoping the revamp, designed to be able to converse with users, can convert some of its hundreds of millions of users into paying customers in an effort to generate a return for the unprofitable business.
The AI service will be able to respond to multiple prompts in sequence and, company executives have said, even act as an “agent” on behalf of users by taking actions for them without their direct involvement. That contrasts with the current iteration, which generally handles only a single request at a time.
Executives have scheduled a meeting, known as a "Go/No-go," for Feb. 14. There they will make a final decision on the "street readiness" of Alexa's generative AI revamp, according to the people and an internal planning document seen by Reuters.
Alexa's revamp carries with it all the challenges inherent in now-familiar generative AI chatbots from OpenAI, Alphabet and others including the possibility of fabricated answers, known as hallucinations. With access to Alexa available in cars, televisions, thermostats and mobile phones, it could become an essential daily tool for scheduling and even shopping.
Initially, Amazon plans to roll out the new Alexa service to a limited number of users and will not charge for it, the people said, though it has considered a $5 to $10 monthly fee. The company will also continue to offer what it is calling “Classic Alexa,” the version broadly available today for free. One of the people said Amazon has discontinued adding new offerings to Classic Alexa.
(Reporting by Greg Bensinger in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis)
