Amazon CEO: 100,000 users now have Alexa+ (
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said that the upgraded digital assistant Alexa+ powered by generative AI has been rolled out to more than 100,000 users. This was revealed during the company’s earnings conference call on Thursday.
Although that’s far from the 600,000,000 Alexa devices in use, the company has made some progress with the rollout Alexa+. It was first announced in February. Amazon announced that Alexa+ was to be released in waves over the next few months.
Amazon’s new digital assistant is designed to allow users to speak with it in a natural way, and to eventually have agentic capabilities that will allow it to use third party apps on behalf of a user. Alexa+ will be able generate responses on the fly like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. This is different from the predetermined responses that were used in the old Alexa/Siri systems.
But, as The Washington Post reported during the launch, Alexa+ is rolling out today. Some of the key features that the company demonstrated in Februaryare missing. The report states that Alexa+ was not able to use third-party apps such as GrubHub at launch. It also did not have the capability to generate a bedtime tale for children or brainstorm gift ideas. It’s not clear when these features will be added to Alexa+.
Jassy stated on the call that “we have a lot of functionality that we intend to add in the coming months.”
Jassy stated that Alexa+ was one of the first consumer-oriented AI agents. He did note that this technology was still “primitive” as well as “inaccurate”. Currently, multi-step AI agents only have an accuracy rate between 30% and 60%. Jassy has set a goal of 90% accuracy for Nova Act, the web-browsing software that powers Alexa+.
Amazon’s rollout for Alexa+ appears to be moving faster than Apple’s rollout for its new, LLM powered Siri. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said that the company was “unable to provide a timeline for the new Siri release.” June 5
Apple and Amazon are reportedly experiencing delays and snags on the road to supercharge their legacy digital assistants using generative AI. Some of the biggest problems are getting LLMs integrate with other systems and use tools. This allows Alexa and Siri perform practical tasks, such as setting up timers and reading text. However, implementing this has proved more difficult than expected. Maxwell Zeff, a senior reporter for TechCrunch who specializes in AI and emerging technology, is
Maxwell Zeff. Zeff covered the rise and fall of AI, as well as the Silicon Valley Bank Crisis, for Gizmodo and MSNBC. He is based out of San Francisco. When he is not reporting, you can find him hiking, biking and exploring the Bay Area food scene.
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