Amazon Could Charge Up to $10/Month for Alexa

[MacRumors]

Apple competitor Amazon is working on a revamp of its Alexa assistant, and the new version could cost up to $10 per month, according to a report from Reuters. The upcoming version of Alexa will support conversational generative AI, and Amazon is planning for two tiers of service.

There will be a free tier and a second, premium tier that is priced at $5 at a minimum, with Amazon considering price points ranging from $5 to $10. Amazon does not plan to include the premium Alexa tier with its $139 per year Prime subscription.

Amazon has not made significant updates to Alexa in the last decade, and it has fallen behind other AI products that have started to adopt large language models. Alexa is free and built into Amazon devices, so Amazon does not make money directly from it as of now. Some employees that spoke to Reuters said the revamp is a "desperate attempt" to revitalize Alexa, and Amazon executives have suggested it is imperative Alexa demonstrate it can generate "meaningful" sales.

The updated version of Alexa, which Amazon calls "Remarkable Alexa" internally, is expected to be able to do things like craft emails, give shopping advice, and order delivery from Uber Eats. Amazon also wants to improve the way that Alexa controls smart home products, with Alexa able to learn how to automate routines.

Amazon is aiming to have the updated version of Alexa finished by August, which would see it launch later this year. Apple is working on a similarly updated version of Siri that also incorporates large language models, though many of the new Siri functions won't be coming until 2025.

Article Link: Amazon Could Charge Up to $10/Month for Alexa

 

[sloheim]

In related news, Alexa is dead.

 

[STOCK411]

In related news, Alexa is dead.

LONG LIVE ALEXA
/s

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

Would've raked it in, in 2016 the last time anybody cared.

 

[ItchyRat2160]

lmaooooooooooooo the logical end point to this subscription obsession is that you will eventually have to pay a monthly subscription to ward off Boston dynamics dogs from ripping out your throat.

£10 a month for something I make set a cooking timer for me occasionally? It's cheaper to just throw the thing out the window.

 

[contacos]

As long as I can still tell it to play music or to turn on / off my lights I don’t care. This is the only thing I use those assistants for. I am way too lazy to talk

 

[jimimac71]

Amazon won't be happy until they have all your money.

 

[turbineseaplane]

They could pay me $10 a month and I wouldn’t use it

 

[Kabeyun]

Can’t wait to hear all about the free tier experience:

“Hey Alexa, what’s the weather tomorrow?”

“Happy to tell you, but first here’s a message from ShedRain umbrellas! Strong, compact, lightweight, and totally waterproof, guaranteed!…”

 

[jz0309]

I guess the free tier will have ads ...
why would anyone pay for this?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Can’t wait to hear about the free tier:

“Hey Alexa, what’s the weather tomorrow?”

“Happy to tell you, but first here’s a message from ShedRain umbrellas! Strong, compact, lightweight, and totally waterproof…guaranteed!…”

Probably will have to sign up for “Alexa premium” to even deactivate the camera and microphone on the device (which probably doesn’t even work)

 

[Kabeyun]

Probably will have to sign up for “Alexa premium” to even deactivate the camera and microphone on the device (which probably doesn’t even work)

Beg pardon? Deactivate the listening devices?

 

[CrysisDeu]

don’t get your hopes high

 

[bmolands]

If they charge to use it or have a free ad-tier, I'm trashing all of them and getting HomePod minis. Hopefully we'll get revamped HomePods that could take advantage of AI in the future. 8 GB RAM seems like a lot though for a HomePod. Maybe they'll allow it to be done off-device.

 

[cjsuk]

Yeah, nope! Not a chance!

The only reason this AI stuff is currently popular is it's free. It's not really worth anything to people unless it's free.

 

[2540497]

Alexa will go in the bin before I pay for it

 

[CarAnalogy]

Prime costs more and more and is worth less and less.

The only thing I use these things for is turning on lights.

And if it says “by the way” to me one more ****** time it’s going out the window.

And definitely not paying for it.

 

[IIGS User]

The only thing I use it for is as an alarm clock. I don’t use Siri for much either.

I also use my echo to play Sirius XM while I’m in the shower sometimes, but not for $120 a year.

I think Bezos is doing drugs with Musk…

 

[J___o___h___n]

I think Amazon are going to be in for a shock at the lack of uptake with this subscription strategy. Can’t see any fool paying for a voice assistant - even if it’s amazon.

 

[johnsc3]

Apple competitor Amazon is working on a revamp of its Alexa assistant, and the new version could cost up $10 per month, according to a report from Reuters. The upcoming version of Alexa will support conversational generative AI, and Amazon is planning for two tiers of service.

There will be a free tier and a second, premium tier that is priced at $5 at a minimum, with Amazon considering price points ranging from $5 to $10. Amazon does not plan to include the premium Alexa tier with its $139 per year Prime subscription.

Amazon has not made significant updates to Alexa in the last decade, and it has fallen behind other AI products that have started to adopt large language models. Alexa is free and built into Amazon devices, so Amazon does not make money directly from it as of now. Some employees that spoke to Reuters said the revamp is a "desperate attempt" to revitalize Alexa, and Amazon executives have suggested it is imperative Alexa demonstrate it can generate "meaningful" sales.

The updated version of Alexa, which Amazon calls "Remarkable Alexa" internally, is expected to be able to do things like craft emails, give shopping advice, and order delivery from Uber Eats. Amazon also wants to improve the way that Alexa controls smart home products, with Alexa able to learn how to automate routines.

Amazon is aiming to have the updated version of Alexa finished by August, which would see it launch later this year. Apple is working on a similarly updated version of Siri that also incorporates large language models, though many of the new Siri functions won't be coming until 2025.

Article Link: Amazon Could Charge Up to $10/Month for Alexa

I don’t use grub hub, nor Alexa. However, it seems they should include it.

 

[usmaak]

My Echo device barely hears me. So I should pay $10/month for extra stuff that I can’t use? 😂

 

[kiranmk2]

I can't see many people paying for this. Will Amazon change direction if noone subscribes?

It sounds like Apple Intelligence is going to be free (or will Apple unveil a monthly price when it comes out of beta?) and people that want to pay for an AI/LLM access will probably prefer to pay for ChatGPT which would get you access to the text and voice versions of GPT-4o as well as access to image generation via DALL-E. Amazon customers are used to either getting things at cost as with the original Alexa devices or paying from Prime and getting benefits like this.

 

[Account25476]

Paying for a product that already profits from the data you provide through your requests. A nightmare practically, I wouldn't use it even if it were twice as good as Siri with Apple Intelligence claim to be.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I don’t use Siri for much either.

Me either
I've learned to use just a couple things it can usually do "ok"

It's such an embarrassing feature after all these years

 

[NT1440]

😂

So for a ton of AI companies there is no ROI without turning to a subscription model (or being acquired, which is what most start ups in this space are banking on).

This bubble is going to burst, and burst big.