Amazon makes Alexa ‘smarter’ as the generative AI arms race gets fierce

Amazon says the new Alexa LLM model is more conversational, offers “real-time info”, and has less “latency” than previous versions of its voice assistant. The new model will be both “larger and generalised,” Limp said, and it will “help us take next steps towards a remarkably different customer experience.” The new Alexa LLM will soon be available as a free preview on Alexa-powered devices in the US.

The new Alexa LLM is more conversational and offers real-time information (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express)

“The capabilities … deliver unique experiences based on the preferences that you’ve shared, the services that you’ve interacted with and the information about the environment in and around your home,” Limp said. “This [new model] will allow you to surface personal reminders. For example, it can help you with recently-played music, or even come up with recipe recommendations based on your grocery purchases.”

During a demo on stage, Limp asked Alexa, powered by the new generative AI model “What’s your favourite sports team?” The voice assistant responded to that and follow-up questions about Seahawks stats and game times — even after Limp paused for a second and addressed the audience and then returned to the conversation with Alexa.

A demo of Echo Hub, a new Alexa-powered smart home hub (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express)

A redesign of Alexa was long overdue. Voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri were seen as technical marvels in the mid-2000s, bringing artificial intelligence capabilities to the forefront. But the surprise success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT last year opened a new chapter in artificial intelligence. In recent months, generative AI has been widely integrated into every major product and app.

Generative AI refers to models or algorithms that create new output, such as text, photos, videos, code or data, from the vast amounts of data they are trained on. The models ‘generate’ new content in response to user prompts. The buzz around generative AI keeps on increasing as more companies find use cases as the technology becomes more mainstream.

During the event, Amazon’s departing hardware chief made it clear that generative AI will be the company’s key focus. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a letter to shareholders in April that the company is focused on “investing heavily” in the technology “across all of our consumer, seller, brand, and creator experiences.”

The new products the company announced during Wednesday’s event were a reflection of Amazon’s long-term effort to bring AI into every device and service going forward. The big takeaway from the event was how the tech giant is thinking about supercharging Alexa and its smart home platform.

At the event, Amazon announced a range of new products and software upgrades including the Echo Show 8, a new voice search feature on Fire TVs, a device to manage all the various smart home gadgets in your house, Alexa-powered smart glasses, kids’ tablets, and more.