Visitors to Amazon Alexa boots during the IFA International International Congressional League of International Electronics and Innovation in Berlin on September 10, 2019.
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Amazon Announced a long-awaited overhaul of its Alexa digital assistant on Wednesday.
Panos Panay, head of equipment at the company, said on the stage in New York that the remodeled service was “Alexa+” called by Amazon.
Since Openai released Chatgpt in late 2022, the company has faced pressure to upgrade Alexa, giving users the ability to perform complex functions such as writing novels and coding software. Suddenly, Alexa and other voice assistants began to appear outdated, prompting Amazon to consider a makeover.
“They recognize that they need to solve this problem correctly, and if they do do it right, then maybe we’re not talking much about Openai vs. Anthropic, and more about Alexa vs. Chatgpt. ”
Alexa subscription fee can help Amazon offset High cost of artificial intelligence developmentand make digital assistants a more profitable business, said Jitesh Ubrania research manager is responsible for wearables and other devices at IDC. CNBC reported in May last year Amazon is considering charging Alexa a monthly subscription fee, part of making money from the service.
“You look at any generated AI system out there, and they have a high development cost,” Ubudlani said.
Ubud Lani said Amazon will need to carefully use the paid Alexa service to avoid alienating major subscribers, who have already paid $139 for loyalty membership.
He added that the company also had to show users “what can this new Alexa do” to justify the subscription. Openai offers a free version of Chatgpt, as well as a premium subscription of $20 per month. Amazon-backed paid versions of Anthropic’s Claude Chatbot cost $20 per month.
“Their audience is already huge, so even converting a small portion of these users into subscriptions can lead to quite a lot of money,” Ubudlani said.
Launched in 2014, Alexa is a passionate project by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who envisions one day like an all-knowing computer in Star Trek. Amazon has established an early lead in voice software, and the company has sold more than 500 million Alexa devices Say 2023.
But Alexa is not as transformative as Bezos hoped. Most consumers use their digital assistants for “very simple tasks” such as checking the weather or playing music, mainly through smartphones rather than smart speakers. Forrester Research.
Alexa is still unprofitable, too. Amazon never charges access to Alexa, but instead injects it into its lineup of smart speakers, tablets and other devices, which are known to be at a lower or less cost. The company hopes that Alexa Interactions will guide consumers to spend money on its other products and services, but failed to achieve it.
Amazon lost billions of dollars on its device business, including Echo, Kindle, Fire TV and other products, Wall Street Journal Reported in July last year.
After Chatgpt launched, Amazon began overhauling Alexa using generated AI technology to make it more conversational and useful. company 2023 Demonstrate a soup alexaalthough the new version of Alexa is called “Let’s Chat”, it is not launched to the public.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is rigorously scrutinized, or Production discontinued under certain circumstancessome of the company’s unproven or loss-making projects. This includes the equipment and services department with Alexa. The unit has conducted Two rounds of layoffs More than 27,000 Amazon employees were released as part of the company-wide layoffs in 2022 and 2023.
