After ten years, the first real update of Amazon Alexa is about to arrive, based on generative AI, which the user will have to pay to use
Also Amazon Alexa will have a version for a fee and, in the plans of the web giant, this turning point would be the only one possible to save Alexa from closure. The news agency is convinced of this Reuterswhich also obtained statements from Amazon which, essentially, confirm the arrival of one new version of the digital assistant, which will be much more powerful and able to understand the natural language of the user.
Remarkable Alexa
The project for a new, more powerful Alexa would be called “Remarkable Alexa“, Meaning what “Amazing Alexa“, and it would be Amazon’s long-awaited answer to OpenAI ChatGPT and Google Gemini (and, perhaps, Apple Intelligence).
The new Alexa, therefore, will be able to converse with the user and will not be limited, like the current one, to receiving single commands. He will be able to do the same things he does now, but he will be able to process more complex commands as “Alexa, turn off all the kitchen lights except the table light“, but will also be able to answer questions about weather, music, entertainment and much more using generative artificial intelligence algorithms.
It will also be able to do summaries of emails received, order takeout, and perform other tasks far more complex than Amazon’s digital assistant can tackle today. But, above all, he will be able to advise the user what to buy on Amazon by reading the history of previous purchases, the user’s navigation on the site or app and many other information.
This big update to Alexa will be the first real innovation since, way back when 2014the service was inaugurated with the first generation of Amazon Echo smart speakers.
His first presentation, to be honest, very generic, has already been completed September 2023 when Amazon announced the arrival of many new features for Alexa, all based on AI, but did not provide specific information on when these new features will arrive.
Already during that presentation, however, Amazon had announced that it would asked for extra to enable what today calls “Remarkable Alexa” on the user’s devices.
What, however, seems quite obvious is that these new functions will not be processed by individual devices compatible with Alexa, but come on Amazon servers. The reason is simple: it is needed too much computing power and the over 500 million devices already present in homes around the world do not have this power.
How much will the new Alexa cost
There is no official price yet for the new “Remarkable Alexa“, but Reuters says it will be at least $5 a month, more likely 10 dollars a month.
This would be a high figure compared to the current Alexa, which is free, but low compared to other chatbots such as ChatGPT Plus ($20 a month) e Google Gemini (21.99 euros per month, but with the Google One Premium AI subscription with 2 TB of cloud space).
Of these two competing services, however, Amazon probably fears Google’s one more, which will soon be the case integrated with Google Home. That is, with the only real home automation service alternative to Alexa, with which practically all Alexa-compatible devices are compatible.
Remarkable Alexa: make or break
Always second ReutersFinally, Amazon would be focusing heavily on this update of Alexa and its own commercial potential. In fact, the digital assistant has always been there since it was born offered at a loss to users.
Amazon’s hope, in fact, was that users would use Alexa to place purchase orders for products on the e-commerce site. This function, actually available today, is used by a very low percentage of users. Most of them, however, simply use Alexa to text timer in the kitchen, set wake up And turn the lights on and off home.
And this, to be honest, already casts some shadows on the commercial success of a very powerful company Alexa from $10 a month.
