Alexa Plus
Amazon on Wednesday showed off Alexa+, a generative AI version of its digital voice assistant that draws on a variety of models and works with many of the company’s older Echo devices.
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Alexa+ will be available in late March and cost $19.99 per month on its own — but it’s free for Amazon Prime customers.
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In demos at a press event in New York, Amazon executives showed Alexa+ doing a variety of tasks, including ordering groceries, analyzing documents and making up stories.
Alexa+ will also be able to navigate the web on its own to handle some tasks, Amazon said.
Via Nick Heer:
These voice-controlled assistants seem like a natural fit for large language models and, if Amazon’s ad is anything to go by, this looks impressive. Something I think about a lot is an accessibility spectrum I first saw from Microsoft. I am not someone with a permanent physical disability, for example, but I cook often and do not want to touch my phone. Voice controls are a situational boon.
But after listening to Amazon’s head of devices and services, Panos Panay, on Nilay Patel’s Decoder podcast, I’m actually even more skeptical now.
Previously:
- Apple Intelligence for Siri in Spring 2025
- Why Alexa Hasn’t Yet Become the Real Computer of the Future
- Charging for “Remarkable Alexa”
- Amazon Alexa to Lose $10 Billion This Year
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I think voice assistants are a horrible match for LLMs. I mean., if they worked it would be great, but given the constant errors I encounter in ChatGPT I don't think they ever will get past 80%
To have them do anything other than give me text I can edit and verify ... I just don't see it. I don't see how others believe in this shit.
"if Amazon’s ad is anything to go by, this looks impressive"
Yeah, but the ad is what we in the industry call, and that's the technical term for it, a god-damned lie.
🤣 I hadn't watched it until just now. I bet my entire NFT collection on there not being anything that's remotely like that horrible horrible ad within five years.
And that kind of ad... I hate them. Please Apple, save us from that crap with your next canned event.
