Amazon today sent out invites for an AI-focused event that will be held on February 26, and according to Reuters, the company plans to introduce its next-generation Alexa generative AI service.
Since Amazon introduced Alexa in 2014, it has become one of the most widely available voice assistants, but it has been falling behind with the proliferation of generative AI products like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Revamping Alexa into a generative AI service will mark the biggest change Amazon has made to the product since its launch. Alexa will be able to hold complex, context-aware conversations with users, and will be able to handle multi-faceted requests.
Amazon is using AI models from Anthropic's Claude rather than relying solely on its in-house AI technology, as early versions of Amazon AI had trouble responding in a timely manner. Amazon initially planned to roll out the updated version of Alexa last year, but ended up pushing the debut back.
It is important for Amazon to get changes to Alexa right, because there are more than 100 million active Alexa users and over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices have been sold. Amazon is aiming to convert some of those Alexa users into paying customers, with plans to eventually charge a subscription fee for the new Alexa. At launch, Amazon will test the new Alexa with a small number of users and won't charge for it.
The new version of Amazon Alexa will come just ahead of when we are expecting Apple to begin testing a new iteration of Siri that's equipped with new Apple Intelligence capabilities. Apple says that Siri is going to be updated with on-screen awareness, personal context, and the ability to do more in and with apps, all of which are expected to allow Siri to do more for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users.
Next year, rumors suggest Apple will roll out an updated version of Siri trained using large language models, so Siri will be able to better compete with ChatGPT and chatbots.
