Can Amazon Alexa AI Upgrade Help Voice Assistant Catch up With Competition?
Today, Alexa faces much more competition that when it was launched a decade ago. Photo Illustration by Jaque Silva/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Image.
Key Takeaways
- Amazon is expected to release an AI upgrade for Alexa in October.
- The smart assistant’s new AI capabilities will bring it in line with newer rivals.
- However, users will need to pay for premium features.
Once the darling of the smart home market, Amazon Alexa lost its shine over the years as rivals like Google Assistant forged ahead with new AI capabilities.
In a bid to catch up, Amazon is planning to give its voice assistant an AI overhaul of its own. However, the anticipated upgrade has faced multiple delays.
And with each setback, Alexa has fallen further behind.
According to an internal document reported by the Washington Post, Amazon will finally launch Alexa’s AI upgrade in October, but will it be enough to close the gap?
Alexa AI Details Emerge
Amazon’s plans for a revamped Alexa were first reported in January, with the upgrade slated to enable more complex commands, conversational language understanding and chatbot-style information retrieval.
The new capabilities should bring Alexa closer to the level of sophistication seen in Google Assistant, which can handle more nuanced conversations and offer more relevant answers since Google started integrating it with Gemini.
As reported by the Washington Post, new features will include conversational shopping tools and daily, AI-generated news summaries called “Smart Briefings,” tailored to users’ preferences.
“AI features that help customers curate, summarize, and explore current events was also rated as one of the top customer requests,” the Amazon document reportedly states.
Amazon to Introduce Paid Alexa Subscription
While Amazon has previously floated the idea of making users pay for premium Alexa features, the latest reports are the strongest indication yet that the company plans to introduce a paid-for AI assistant.
Subscriptions are expected to cost around $10 a month, but “classic Alexa,” will remain free to use, the publication reported.
Playing Catch-up
When Amazon first introduced Alexa via its smart speaker range in 2014, it had the market for smart home assistants all to itself.
Even after Google launched its own take on the concept two years later, Amazon maintained a respectable lead. But its lead has been eroded in recent years.
As of August 2024, Amazon Echo devices still retain the largest share of the smart speaker market. However, that share is projected to shrink in the coming years as alternatives like Google Nest and Apple HomePod gain traction.
What’s more, speaker sales only tell part of the story. With Apple and Google positioning their respective virtual assistants as dynamic AI agents that inhibit a world of connected devices, smart speakers are no longer the default integration hubs they once were.
Alexa’s upcoming AI upgrade is a crucial moment for Amazon.
If the firm gets it right, it could reinvigorate the voice assistant and help it reclaim some of the market share it has lost in recent years.
However, if the upgrade falls short, Alexa could continue to fade into the background as users increasingly turn to Google Assistant, Siri, and newer entrants like ChatGPT.
Pixel 9 Google Assistant Replaced With Gemini – But Can It Perform Basic Tasks?
