Amazon is considering offering an improved version of its smart voice assistant “Alexa” based on artificial intelligence in exchange for a specific subscription, according to a recent report published by the “Business Insider” website, which specializes in financial and business news.
- According to the report, the upgraded version of Alexa, known internally as “Remarkable Alexa,” will rely on a new large language model to improve its performance, but it appears that it is still providing less than required performance in the current experimental phase.
- Amazon plans to launch its upgraded version of Alexa under the name “Alexa Plus” in the middle of this year, amid “internal disagreements” about the feasibility of that offering, and whether customers are willing to pay to use the upgraded version or not, in parallel with their other subscriptions to various Amazon services.
Moreover, the upgraded version of Alexa may not offer many extras for Amazon customers; Last September, the company offered a preview of these additions, including issuing multiple commands in one sentence, and setting up routine procedures just by speaking.
The report stated that the trial run is not going as planned so far; The upgraded version of Alexa tends to provide inaccurate answers. However, her abilities to hold and personalize conversations have improved.
Amazon will need to charge a monthly fee for using its upgraded version of its smart
assistant in order to cover the high costs of operating generative artificial intelligence systems, as other competing companies are currently doing.
For example, OpenAI offers the popular ChatGPT bot in a paid version for $20 per month, which is roughly the current average monthly subscription for similar services.
