Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa is expected to bully major AI-powered upgrades later this month. Amazon sent a media invitation to the February 26 event in New York. There, Panos Panay, lead of Amazon’s Devices and Services team, will speak.
After spending decades at Microsoft, Panay joined Amazon in 2023 to help form the Surface product line.
This event is expected to preview Alexa’s long-term generated AI voice capabilities. This could greatly improve your ability to engage in more natural, contextual conversations and full multi-step tasks.
If announced, this will mark the most important evolution of Alexa since its debut in 2014. Amazon has long been the leader in the AI assistant space, but the landscape is changing rapidly. Companies like Openai, Google, and Anthropic are deploying sophisticated AI assistants that can multitask and complete complex requests.
Alexa is currently processing one command at a time. Last month, Openai introduced a new AI agent called operators. It is intended to handle routine tasks such as dinner reservations, grocery orders, and filling out forms. Amazon told CNET that the event highlighted the latest innovations from the Alexa team, but did not provide details.
With over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices in homes around the world, generative AI upgrades could reconstruct the way users interact with voice assistants and introduce paid tiers for more advanced features There is. Reuters reported that Amazon has considered charging the service between $5 and $10 a month, whilst keeping the original version of Alexa free.
Apple is also rumoured to bolster smart home efforts with a wall-mounted display equipped with Siri, designed to control household devices such as thermostats, lights and appliances.
The device, which is expected to be released in March, is expected to be part of Apple’s push to compete more aggressively on the Smart Home Market.