Amazon has announced an event on February 26, where a new, more intelligent version of the Alexa assistant is expected to be launched.
The event was teased with a quintet of images that, when joined together, have a background that spells out “Alexa”.
An AI-enhanced Alexa digital assistant that is able to respond more like a chatbot has been in the works for some time. It was expected to be announced last autumn, but had faced technical hurdles than threaten to make this new version of Alexa less useful – and more annoying – than the one we have today.
According to Amazon AI head Rohit Prasad, the work-in-progress version of the assistant is susceptible to hallucinations, as he said in an interview with the FT.
Hallucinations refer to the habit of LLMs, the tech that powers AI chatbots, to make stuff up. Mr Prasad told the FT that hallucinations need to be “close to zero” before the software launches to the public.
A version of the LLM-based Alexa has been available to some users as a beta for some time, unlocked using the “let’s chat” command.
Whether you really want a chatty Alexa if you use it primarily to turn your smart lights on and off is up for debate. And it may come with a sting.
Last year, The Washington Post reported Amazon was preparing to introduce a subscription fee for Alexa, pay-walling some AI features. And that could include this supposedly smarter take on Alexa.
Amazon has sold well over 500 million Alexa devices, which include Echo speakers – it hit that milestone in 2023. The February 26 event may also be used to refresh the company’s Echo line-up.
While a smarter Alexa would likely not necessitate new hardware, some of the key models in the family are now quite aged. The Echo Dot had its last design update in 2022, while the larger standard Echo speaker hasn’t changed since 2020.
Since then, Amazon has introduced the low-cost Echo Pop in 2023, and the bedside-ready Echo Spot in 2024.
