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Amazon Plans to Unveil Next-Generation Alexa AI Later This Month

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Amazon today sent out invites for an AI-focused event that will be held on February 26, and according to Reuters, the company plans to introduce its next-generation Alexa generative AI service.

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Since Amazon introduced Alexa in 2014, it has become one of the most widely available voice assistants, but it has been falling behind with the proliferation of generative AI products like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Revamping Alexa into a generative AI service will mark the biggest change Amazon has made to the product since its launch. Alexa will be able to hold complex, context-aware conversations with users, and will be able to handle multi-faceted requests.

Amazon is using AI models from Anthropic's Claude rather than relying solely on its in-house AI technology, as early versions of Amazon AI had trouble responding in a timely manner. Amazon initially planned to roll out the updated version of Alexa last year, but ended up pushing the debut back.

It is important for Amazon to get changes to Alexa right, because there are more than 100 million active Alexa users and over 500 million Alexa-enabled devices have been sold. Amazon is aiming to convert some of those Alexa users into paying customers, with plans to eventually charge a subscription fee for the new Alexa. At launch, Amazon will test the new Alexa with a small number of users and won't charge for it.

The new version of Amazon Alexa will come just ahead of when we are expecting Apple to begin testing a new iteration of Siri that's equipped with new Apple Intelligence capabilities. Apple says that Siri is going to be updated with on-screen awareness, personal context, and the ability to do more in and with apps, all of which are expected to allow Siri to do more for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users.

Next year, rumors suggest Apple will roll out an updated version of Siri trained using large language models, so Siri will be able to better compete with ChatGPT and chatbots.

Article Link: Amazon Plans to Unveil Next-Generation Alexa AI Later This Month
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/05/alexa-ai-coming-february/
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My concern with this is the price they’ll charge for it. I’ll have to wait and see, trouble is my Dyson fan works out the box with Alexa, I’ve looked at getting it to work with Siri and it’s just sooooo much hassle or impossible. But Siri should work offline to an extent. Hmm. Shame with the AI changes they are going to charge for it, but I guess all those Nvidia AI GPUs aren’t cheap, then again Apple purchased thousands of them apparently.
 
An Alexa listening device in my home? No.
An Amazon product in my home? No.
An AI “enhanced” device from Amazon that will listen to what’s going on and then randomly do whatever s*** it thinks it should?
Oh hell no.

No, just no.
 
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Ah yes inviting tech oligarchy into your house with surveillance nodes. Sounds fantastic.

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I have tried to quantify what I gain from any technology I consider rather than just adopting it. A lot of the time I lose something and someone else gains.
 
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SIRI is still the biggest load of crap of AI there is. Far from useful. Maybe some of you nerds love it, but for everyday things its a crappy experience. Such a shame.
Will be interesting to see if Amazon can push ahead with their implementation.
 
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They will follow the google model and force AI on its users with no way to op out.
 
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psxp said:
SIRI is still the biggest load of crap of AI there is. Far from useful. Maybe some of you nerds love it, but for everyday things its a crappy experience. Such a shame.
Will be interesting to see if Amazon can push ahead with their implementation.
Click to expand...
Honestly I use Siri every day. “Set a timer for XX minutes”, “Start a walking workout”, “What time do the XXX play”, for that sort of thing it works great. I also use it for dictation. It’s very good for that. A couple of years ago I had to make a list of my Geology textbooks. “The Devonian Extinction”, “Mineralogy of Sulphate Minerals”, “Introduction to Mineralogy”, “Lunar Science, a Post Apollo View”, there were around fifty of them with highly technical and obscure names. It didn’t make a mistake on any of them.

Siri is good, as long as you know what to use it for.
 
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ozaz said:
I think it may be country-related. I'm in the UK and don't get any, but I think US-based users do get them.
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That's right, Japan doesn't have ads. On our Prime movies and TV shows neither have them. Country based. strange isn't it?
 
psxp said:
SIRI is still the biggest load of crap of AI there is. Far from useful. Maybe some of you nerds love it, but for everyday things its a crappy experience. Such a shame.
Will be interesting to see if Amazon can push ahead with their implementation.
Click to expand...
Everyday things. I bet you forget you have Echos in your home. I use my HomePods multiple times throughout the day for hours. Not just for light switches.
 
Good to know about it. All the other services are improving a lot while Siri is far behind. Hopefully that changes this year at WWDC.
 
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I bought a series of Echo Shows over time since HomePods don't have screens, because I wanted glanceable weather, calendar and smart home widgets in every room. They were super cheap during Prime Days so there was little monetary commitment.

In the end, these became Amazon ad billboards in my home. Understandable given their subsidized price, but with Siri + Apple Intelligence now better than current Alexa and with a promising future given Apple's all-hands-on-deck commitment to intelligence, I'm definitely not spending a dime on a paid Alexa and will replace these with Apple's HomePad when those come out.
 
Funny comparing Siri with Alexa 🤣 Siri is better? That’s laughable for security. They’re probably both the same. I don’t believe the sky is falling with the privacy issue Siri or Alexa. Using Amazon devices for years and I haven’t had any issues for security. If you’re doing nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.
 
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Daalseth said:
Honestly I use Siri every day. “Set a timer for XX minutes”, “Start a walking workout”, “What time do the XXX play”, for that sort of thing it works great. I also use it for dictation. It’s very good for that. A couple of years ago I had to make a list of my Geology textbooks. “The Devonian Extinction”, “Mineralogy of Sulphate Minerals”, “Introduction to Mineralogy”, “Lunar Science, a Post Apollo View”, there were around fifty of them with highly technical and obscure names. It didn’t make a mistake on any of them.

Siri is good, as long as you know what to use it for.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's about it. All I do with Siri is set timers and reminders. And I do a lot of dictation too but that is not Siri.

Siri is dumb compared to other services. You can see it when someone else like the neighbors kids try to use it like they use Alexa at their home, and the only response is "I can forward the results to your phone". No you dumb idiot I just want you to tell us what the kids asked you. Or when friends tell me that they have iPhones but they use Alexa or Google Assistant and when I ask why they tell me all the things they can do. LOL! Let's face it Siri is dumb, otherwise Apple would not have introduced shortcuts. And Apple Home is even dumber. The two combined are crap and I have given up my hope that they will ever be as good as ChatGPT or any other service.
 
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