Amazon unveiled its voice assistant “Alexa+,” which is equipped with generative AI, on the 26th. It is the first major change in more than 11 years since the first introduction of Alexa in 2014. It helps with various tasks such as daily reservation services and schedule management as well as shopping.
Amazon’s head of devices, Panos Panay, said at a product unveiling event in New York that “Alexa+ is a trusted secretary who can help you lead your home and life.”
Amazon introduced that Alexa+ has corrected existing shortcomings, such as supporting more natural and intuitive conversations and requiring certain commands to get the right answer. It also emphasized that it specialized in user personalization services, and that in the United States, it can provide a variety of daily services by expanding partnerships with third-party services other than Amazon.
Alexa+ identified who the speaker was and identified his favorite sports team, music, and food preferences during the service demonstration. Based on this, you can recommend a restaurant, run a restaurant reservation app, call an Uber that lets you go to the restaurant, and send an invitation to a friend. In addition, if it’s cold, raise the air conditioner setting temperature, if it’s too bright, adjust the light dimly, and if it’s connected to Amazon Prime to ask a specific character, episode, or background music of a movie or TV program you like, you can find the scene and play it immediately.
It also provides complex functions such as reading a study guide, making questions, organizing handwritten documents, and reviewing the homeowners association’s contract to determine whether solar panels can be installed. You can also watch camera videos by linking it to the Amazon doorbell, Ring.
Unlike the previous Alexa free, Alexa+ offered a paid pricing plan of $19.99 per month to ordinary users. It is free to Amazon Prime members. It plans to launch it to some users from March and expand its subscriber base.
Amazon said that Alexa+ will be powered by several generative AI models, including Anthropic’s “Claude.” Amazon has invested 8 billion dollars in Anthropic, which is considered an opponent of open AI. It plans to install Alexa+ in smart home devices including Amazon speaker Echo.
With the addition of Amazon, competition for AI assistants in the smart home sector of global big tech giants is intensifying. Samsung Electronics is planning to link its voice AI assistant Bixby with the IoT platform “SmartThings,” while Apple and Google are also planning to apply their AI assistants “Siri” and “Gemini Live” to their smart home sectors, respectively.
SAM KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
