Was Amazon’s voice assistant too ahead of its time? Launched in 2014, particularly on connected speakers, Alexa now seems overwhelmed by the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), which makes it possible to better understand user requests and respond better to them. Amazon is therefore working on a new version boosted by AI, and could make Alexa pay to compensate for its development costs, says CNBC this Wednesday, May 22.
CEO Andy Jassy promised, in his letter to shareholders in April, “an even smarter Alexa” thanks to AI. In January, Business Insider explained that this new version of the voice assistant could notably allow it to hold conversations, provide more relevant answers or even perform tasks requiring the use of several different applications. According to CNBC, it could be launched as early as this year.
Amazon “will end up charging” to use this Alexa 2.0, its now former vice-president David Limp estimated in September 2023 to The Verge. At the time, however, he affirmed that the current version of Alexa would continue to exist while remaining free. The strategy has changed, according to CNBC. The subscription requested for Alexa would not be included in the Amazon Prime offer – which contains free delivery and the streaming platform – but its price has not yet been decided. Amazon declined to comment on this information to the American media.
Strengthening the Alexa voice assistant is strategic for Amazon, which must at all costs avoid missing the turning point in AI, whose progress in recent months is making its technology obsolete. The latest version of GPT-4o is notably able to understand text, speech and images, and respond to them in the same way. The latest Copilot PCs presented at the end of May by Microsoft also contain a tool capable of subtitling and instantly translating conversations. For Alexa, giving the weather forecast, playing music or providing information on the result of the previous day’s match is no longer really enough.