Amazon intends to launch its postponed

AI Alexa subscription in October.

 

 

 

 

 

According to documents, the voice assistant will undergo a makeover a few weeks prior to the American presidential election, which would allegedly include a daily AI-generated news summary.

Amazon is getting ready to launch its much-needed overhaul of Alexa, its personal voice assistant, in October, according to confidential papers that The Washington Post was able to get.

This comes as the company prepares to take on competitor artificial intelligence voice assistants.

According to the documents, a paid subscription will be necessary to access the enhanced version of the assistant.

A new “Smart Briefing” feature that offers daily, AI-generated summaries of news articles chosen based on a customer’s preferences will be included in the rollout, which is slated to happen just weeks before the presidential election, according to the papers.

In the past, Alexa has had trouble providing precise responses to inquiries about political news events, like the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. Competing tech firms, such as Google and Microsoft, have trained their AI chatbots, Copilot and Gemini, to refuse to respond to political inquiries due to concerns regarding disinformation during this year’s important international elections.

However, according to records from Amazon, “one of the top customer requests was also for AI features that help customers curate, summarize, and explore current events.” According to internal communications used to monitor success prior to product launches, news summaries might foster a daily habit and “recurrent engagement.”

The advertisements hinted that the new assistant might be required to pay a $10 monthly membership fee. The previous assistant, “Classic Alexa,” will be available for free. The product name, pricing, and subscription plan will be selected by Amazon management this month, according to documents obtained by The Post.

The corporation declined to comment about this piece. The Post is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The new Alexa, which the documentation occasionally refers to as Remarkable Alexa or Project Banyan, also has recipe discovery assistance and a chatbot geared at children. The docs also outline additional conversational purchasing features that, in conjunction with membership fees, may help Amazon recover a portion of its Alexa investment if they increase online sales.

Despite selling over 500 million Alexa devices, Amazon has not shared any information regarding the project’s income or other finances. The Wall Street Journal revealed last month that the company’s device division had lost tens of billions of dollars due to development expenses and users mostly use Alexa‘s free features.

In September 2023, Amazon initially declared that Alexa would get a significant AI makeover. The initiative was perceived as Amazon‘s reaction to the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, which forced major internet companies to increase their AI spending. The Post was able to secure an internal Amazon memo from earlier this year that stated the updated assistant will go live in September 2024.

According to the newly disclosed internal documents, the project was supposed to start in mid-October, but Amazon took over a year to complete, which is longer than the time it took for other large tech companies to launch similar AI initiatives since ChatGPT first appeared.

Amazon has introduced a shopping assistant named Rufus, but it hasn’t produced a general-purpose chatbot like ChatGPT, Google‘s Gemini, or Microsoft Copilot. However, the documents revealed that the business intends to introduce Project Metis, a web-based product that was previously revealed by Business Insider and is intended to directly rival ChatGPT-style applications, in addition to the new Alexa.

The documents state that the new Amazon Alexa is meant to have a more engaging and charming personality. They explain how the assistant will be trained to identify the unique voices of brand-new clients and inquire about their background in order to be of greater assistance in the future.

“Would you like to tell me more about your family?” the device might ask. and “Tell me something about what you like to do on the weekends.” Future recipe suggestions might take into account any dietary restrictions that the user has told the assistant about.

 According to the documents, clients would find the AI assistant more “like-able” the better it is able to anticipate their demands.

Customers will be able to access recipes and other everyday chores assisted by the new AI Alexa. The docs state that “food assistance was ranked one of the top 3 areas where customers want more help from AI enabled assistance.”

The goal of many new features is to simplify the Amazon purchasing experience, which may improve e-commerce sales and allow Amazon to recover its investment in Alexa.

According to the documents, customers who pay for AI Alexa will be able to ask it questions about the appearance and features of products, such as “what colors do the shoes come in?”

“what are the ingredients?” asking “do you have any deals on headphones?” An new tool called Shopping Scout is being marketed as “a marquee feature to drive subscriptions” since it can notify customers when a product they wish to buy goes on sale.

According to Amazon, kids can also find the AI Alexa to be fascinating. The literature states that after successfully verifying, young people can use an app called Explore with Alexa 2.0 to “have back-and-forth, exploratory conversations with Alexa about any topic under the sun.” The documentation states that the children’s experience will be both legally compliant and “safe and moderated”.