Amazon is tipped to launch a massive upgrade that turns Alexa into a fully featured Generative AI empowered chatbot.
It has scheduled a February 26 event to debut Alexa AI, with the main presentation to be delivered by Panos Panay, head of devices and services, ecoustics.com reports.
It says Amazon is using AI models obtained from Anthropic’s Claude. It didn’t develop its own.
Amazon executives are holding a preliminary meeting on February 14 to determine if the upgrade is ready to go and to give the event the green light.
This is a massive development for Amazon which launched the original Alexa 10 years ago.
The upgrade is massive given the millions of TVs, speakers, soundbars, cars and other connected home products that use Alexa.
The question is whether devices with the old Alexa can be upgraded to the new AI-empowered Alexa, and which devices you will need to buy afresh if you want the new service.
That is likely to be a device-by-device proposition.
The report says Amazon is considering a US$5-10 charge for using the AI Alexa; a limited number of users might get it for free.
Amazon will continue with the current “Classic Alexa” although it may not receive any future upgrades.
It estimates 100 million active Alexa users, and more than 500 million Alexa-enabled devices have been sold.
