Amazon is planning a major overhaul of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include conversational generative artificial intelligence with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of about $5 for access to the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company’s plans.
Known internally as “Banyan,” a reference to sprawling ficus trees, the project would represent the first major overhaul of the voice assistant since it was introduced in 2014 alongside the Echo speaker line. Amazon has dubbed the new voice assistant “Remarkable Alexa,” the people said.
The sources include eight current and former employees who worked on Alexa who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential projects.
Amazon has pushed workers toward an August deadline to prepare the latest version of Alexa, three of the people said, noting that CEO Andy Jassy has a personal interest in reviving Alexa. In an April letter to shareholders, Jassy promised a “more intelligent and capable Alexa,” without further details.
The company’s plans for Alexa, including pricing and release dates, could change or be canceled depending on the progress of the Banyan project, the people warned.
“We’ve already integrated generative AI into various Alexa components and are working hard to deploy at scale—in more than half a billion Alexa-enabled ambient devices already in homes around the world—to enable even more proactive, personal and reliable assistance for our customers.” an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement.
The service — which provides spoken responses to user queries, such as the local time, and can serve as a hub for controlling home appliances — was a pet project of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who envisioned technology that could mimic the fictional voice computer featured on the Star Trek television series. .
Keeping pace with rivals in generative artificial intelligence is crucial for Amazon as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI have drawn more attention for their so-called chatbots that can respond almost instantly in full sentences to complicated instructions or queries.
ChatGPT’s release in late 2022 sparked an investment frenzy in AI companies and pushed chipmaker Nvidia ahead of Amazon and others by market capitalization, briefly becoming the second most valuable company in the world.
Apple is also pushing forward with its own AI strategy, including updating its Siri voice-activation software built into iPhones to include more conversational responses.
Some of the Amazon employees who worked on the project say Banyan represents a “desperate attempt” to revitalize the service, which has never turned a profit and has been caught up in the rise of competing generative AI products over the past 18 months. The people said they were told by senior management that this year was critical for the service to finally show it could generate significant sales for Amazon.
Primarily accessed through Amazon TV and Echo speakers, Alexa is popular mainly for setting timers, quickly accessing the weather forecast, playing songs or answering simple questions. Amazon’s hopes of boosting its e-commerce sales through the service have been dashed, largely because customers want to see the products they’re buying first for easier comparison.
The Seattle-based retailer cut thousands of jobs at the unit at the end of 2023 as part of a major restructuring after the pandemic spurred a surge in e-commerce.
‘MUST WIN’
With artificial intelligence built in, Amazon expects Alexa users to ask her for shopping tips, such as which gloves and hats to buy for hiking, the people said, similar to a text service on its website known as Rufus that Amazon rolled out earlier this year.
Some said they were told by senior management that 2024 was a “must-win” year for Alexa, which, along with Prime membership and Kindle and Fire devices, are the brands most closely associated with Amazon.
But the AI-powered version of the service demonstrated in September has yet to be released to the general public while competitors have rolled out multiple updates to their chatbots. In the demonstration, Alexa lost her robotic tone and answered questions such as the start time of a soccer match. “Now you can have near-human conversations with Alexa,” promised Dave Limp, Amazon’s head of hardware at the time, who has since left the company.
Amazon is working to replace what it internally calls “Classic Alexa,” the current free version, with one powered by AI and another tier that uses more powerful AI software for more complicated queries and queries that people would have to pay at least $5 a month to access, some said People. Amazon also considered a price of about $10 a month, they said.
There’s no connection to Amazon’s $139-a-year Prime membership, the people said.
As envisioned, the paid version could perform more complex tasks such as composing a short email, sending it and ordering dinner for delivery from Uber Eats, all from a single query, some people said. It could also eliminate the need to repeatedly say “Alexa” while talking to the software and offer more personalization, they said.
But people said they had a hard time understanding why users would be willing to pay for a service, even a revamped one, that is now offered for free.
Amazon has also been hit by false starts in its AI development and other challenges such as hallucinations – when software produces false or misleading information – and poor employee morale in the department.
Business Insider previously reported on some of Amazon’s plans for the service, including issues with the performance of the underlying artificial intelligence and hopes for a paid service, but Reuters was the first to report on multiple prices, an internal deadline and a potential monthly fee.
Amazon also aims to beef up the home automation that Alexa offers, the people said. Alexa can now connect wirelessly to so-called smart devices so they can be controlled by voice, allowing the user to turn on the porch lights at 8 p.m. every day, for example.
But Remarkable Alexa could learn from the user to turn on the television for a favorite weekly program or turn on the user’s coffee pot after the morning alarm goes off, which today is possible through queries Amazon calls Routines.
Some people have noted that such a service will require the purchase of additional Alexa-enabled devices to function properly.
The company last year worked on devices to deliver service to multiple rooms in the home, such as Alexa-enabled home energy monitors and carbon monoxide detectors, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and was auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
