Amazon Debuts Gen Ai-Powered Alexa+ as It Seeks to Breathe Life Into Its Aging Assistant
Amazon's newest iteration of its voice assistant, Alexa+, brings generative AI capabilities to the 10-year-old helper, aiming to compete with Google's Gemini and Microsoft-backed ChatGPT. By outfitting Alexa with large language models from Anthropic, Amazon is enhancing its ability to perform tasks across multiple apps and remember personal preferences. The new assistant is available for $19 per month, or free for Prime users, marking a significant shift in the company's approach to reinventing its aging virtual companion.
- As AI-powered assistants become increasingly ubiquitous, it raises questions about the blurring of lines between human intuition and machine learning-driven decision-making, potentially impacting industries such as healthcare and finance.
- How will Amazon's foray into generative AI influence the development of more sophisticated voice assistants, and what implications might this have on the future of human-computer interaction?