Introduction Of Amazon
Amazon’s next-generation digital assistant, Alexa+, has now been rolled out to more than 100,000 users, according to CEO Andy Jassy during the company’s recent earnings call. While that number is small compared to the 600 million Alexa devices already in homes, it marks steady progress for the new AI assistant first announced back in February.
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Alexa+ is designed to offer a much more natural and conversational experience, powered by generative AI. Unlike the older version of Alexa — which relied on pre-set responses — Alexa+ can generate original replies on the fly, similar to the voice experiences offered by ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Eventually, Amazon says the assistant will be able to perform tasks through third-party apps on behalf of users, giving it more proactive, “agent-like” capabilities.
However, Alexa+ is still in its early stages. According to a report from The Washington Post, several key features that were demoed earlier this year are still missing. At launch, the assistant couldn’t order food through services like GrubHub, create bedtime stories for kids, or help brainstorm gift ideas — all features that had been previously highlighted.
Jassy acknowledged that the technology is still developing, calling it “primitive” and “inaccurate” at this stage. He said that multi-step AI agents like Alexa+ currently only get things right about 30% to 60% of the time. Amazon’s goal is to raise that accuracy to 90% for Alexa+’s AI browsing engine, called Nova Act.
Despite the early limitations, Amazon seems to be moving faster than Apple, whose AI-enhanced Siri is facing delays. On Apple’s own earnings call — which happened at the same time as Amazon’s — CEO Tim Cook said they still need more time to finish work on the new version of Siri.
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