Latest news with #Alexa+
Tom's Guide
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Tom's Guide
Alexa+ reviewer pans new AI: ‘If this is Amazon's version of intelligent, I'm low-key scared for the future'
Announced back in April, Alexa+ looked to be one of the biggest developments in the AI assistant world. Amazon claimed it would be a whole new experience, assisting the whole family with everything from planning the week to buying tickets for gigs. Well, now Alexa+ is beginning its rollout. Reviewers are getting their hands on the new experience, and they have some mixed feelings about it. While we will be giving the service a full run-down in the near future, for now, let's see what people are saying about the latest AI service to see a public release. Opening up an article and seeing the phrase 'Alexa has become a glorified timer for many people, and its AI glow-up has not helped' is probably not the best start for Alexa+. The Street, a financial and tech news website, wasn't just unsure in their early experiences of using the new system, but seemingly in complete disappointment with it. 'Responses took longer, she got confused more easily, and at one point she responded to a weather question by playing a Pitbull song,' Cody Kline, the author of the article, wrote. 'If this is Amazon's version of 'intelligent,' I'm low-key scared for the future.' Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. As Kline goes on to point out, Alexa+ is still in its trial phase, and, in theory, most of these problems will go away in the future. But, it's not exactly a good start! A less brutal review from Wirecutter, but definitely mixed in its feedback. Kathryn Rath, the author of the article, talks through the improvements to Alexa's conversational skills, something that was altogether lacking before. 'My conversations with my upgraded Echo Show 8 have been longer than in the past, more layered with back-and-forth banter, and far more involved. Interactions have ranged from basic informational queries, such as for the weather and restaurant info, to nonsensical meme-fodder,' she said. 'For kicks, I asked how many rocks I could eat in a day, and Alexa+ helpfully informed me that eating rocks is bad. I also attempted to trick Alexa+ into believing that two plus two equals five, but it would not be swayed.' Rath also notes that there have been considerable improvements in the speaker's ability to pull on previous conversations, a feature that Amazon touted in its announcement of the tech. She goes on to praise the improvements across the board, showing Alexa has improved in its situational awareness and understanding of more complex requests. However, for a lot of people, the growth of a personality will be more annoying than beneficial. Alexa+ was previously, let's be honest, not exactly the smartest of smart assistants. Now, she can sass you and attempt to understand the emotion behind a request. 'My partner asked if Alexa+ could find 'mediocre recipes' for an 'average dinner.' Alexa+ picked up on his sarcasm and sassed him back, using phrases like 'recipes that are the beige wallpaper of the food world,' Rath said. 'In the moment we laughed, but as I've sat with the experience, I've come to find it increasingly unsettling.' One positive review and one negative, so what's up next? Our sister site TechRadar has spent a week with the device and has mixed opinions. 'It's far more conversational, willing to endlessly chat in its default, more natural, dulcet tones. It's jokey but full of useful information, and probably remembers more of what you tell it about yourself than your best friend,' Lance Ulanoff, TechRadar's Editor at Large, wrote. However, like many of the other reviews of Alexa+, the article goes on to point out that this is early days and that Alexa+ still has a long way to go before it is here in its official form. In his week using the device, Ulanoff used the improved version of Alexa to play generative games, analyse his smart home, and get smarter analysis of the news. Across the seven days, his review is essentially that this is a mixed yet very promising offer from Alexa — a hopeful take for those excited for what is to come. The Amazon Echo community on Reddit was quick to jump on this one, diving into conversations on the experience of Alexa+. 'I have Prime and upgraded. To be honest, I'm very unhappy with it. The conversation is great, it's much more natural and I can carry on without waking it again. However, many of the functions the old Alexa had are gone now,' said one user, beckerj99. To be honest, I'm very unhappy with it. The conversation is great, it's much more natural and I can carry on without waking it again. However, many of the functions the old Alexa had are gone now 'I used to be able to tell my Alexa to turn on the fan for 2 hours, and it would. Now it doesn't understand that. I had to make a routine to turn on my fan for 2 hours. Also, it doesn't seem to understand how to shuffle my playlists. I ask it to shuffle ,and it just plays from the beginning, no matter how many times I ask it.' Other users joined in with the criticism. With another user describing her voice as 'super creepy to me,' and that they are using it less and less. In fact, of the Reddit users on this thread, very few were positive about the experience that they had since upgrading. So, it's a bit of a cloudy picture right now. Sure, Alexa+ is delivering on some of its promises. It is more conversational and seems to work more efficiently than its predecessor. However, there is still a long way to go until it is a fully functioning system. In fact, based on the opinions of those on Reddit and The Street, it could just be a flop, even with more time. Hopefully with more time in development, this can become everything Amazon originally promised and more.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Amazon's Alexa AI upgrade is even worse than expected
I can't remember a time when I didn't have an Amazon Alexa device. When it first came out, I hopped right on the train. I pretty much have one in every room. I still use it every day to turn on the lights, adjust the thermostat, and play music. But let's be hasn't really gotten any smarter over the years. For every time Alexa gets something right, there's another moment of, "Sorry, I don't have an answer for that," which usually makes me reach for my phone instead. Related: Amazon's latest products go after a new type of customer So when I got the chance to test out Amazon's new Alexa+, I was genuinely excited. This was supposed to be the big leap: the AI glow-up, the smart home savior, the moment Alexa finally stopped acting like that stubborn parent who clearly needs hearing aids but insists they can hear "just fine." But after a few days of living with Alexa+, I started to wonder who greenlit this thing and said, "Yes, this is ready for the public." Responses took longer, she got confused more easily, and at one point she responded to a weather question by playing a Pitbull song. If this is Amazon's version of "intelligent," I'm low-key scared for the future. Alexa+ was supposed to be Amazon's big comeback moment. The company teased a generative AI assistant that could finally go beyond timers and more conversational, more intuitive. One that might actually keep up with ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. But that's not what users are experiencing. Not even close. Reddit users have been quick to call it out. One post summed up the general vibe: "With all totally insane AI advancement the past few years, how come Alexa is still as dumb as 10 years ago?" wrote u/MarinatedP. That earned a pitch-perfect comeback from u/holdmypurse: "Sorry. I don't have an answer for that." Another commenter, u/deicist, speculated that the problems might be by design: "They've deliberately been removing features from Alexa for the past couple of years so that Alexa+ seems like a massive upgrade worth paying for." Related: Amazon and Walmart are pushing for even faster deliveries To be fair, this is still in the early access phase and is technically a beta. But when Amazon promotes something as the future of voice, users expect more than slower responses and recycled features. Some users are cautiously optimistic. As u/southernhope1 put it, the new experience "feels better." But others, like u/Rattus-Norvegicus1, weren't as kind: "Alexa got dumber, if that is possible." The backlash and mixed reactions raise a bigger question: what does this mean for Amazon's long-term AI strategy? Smart assistants aren't just a convenience. They serve as a gateway to Amazon's entire ecosystem. When Alexa works, she powers shopping, streaming, and smart home habits that keep people locked into the brand. But when she stumbles, users take notice. Voice assistant usage in the U.S. continues to grow, with projections estimating 154.3 million users in 2025 and 170.3 million by 2028. Despite that growth, Amazon is no longer leading the pack. According to eMarketer, Alexa has about 77.6 million U.S. users in 2025 so far, trailing behind Google Assistant (92.4 million) and Apple's Siri (87 million). If Alexa+ can't shift momentum, Amazon risks more than just falling behind in AI. It could lose its role in how people interact with technology altogether. While competitors are finding ways to weave AI into nearly everything they do, Amazon is still struggling to make Alexa sound competent. And that's what makes this so surprising. This isn't a scrappy startup. This is Amazon: a trillion-dollar company with endless resources and a multibillion-dollar stake in Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Yet Alexa+ still feels like it's stuck in 2016. If this is what Amazon came up with after years of development, it feels more laughable than alarming. All we can do now is hope the official version is better. And in the meantime, I'll be over here asking Alexa to set a timer - just for fun, since it probably won't go off. Related: Beloved cereal goes 'serial killer dark' for new ad The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Amazon's big AI upgrade is hilariously bad
I can't remember a time when I didn't have an Amazon Alexa device. When it first came out, I hopped right on the train. I pretty much have one in every room. I still use it every day to turn on the lights, adjust the thermostat, and play music. But let's be hasn't really gotten any smarter over the years. For every time Alexa gets something right, there's another moment of, "Sorry, I don't have an answer for that," which usually makes me reach for my phone instead. Related: Amazon's latest products go after a new type of customer So when I got the chance to test out Amazon's new Alexa+, I was genuinely excited. This was supposed to be the big leap: the AI glow-up, the smart home savior, the moment Alexa finally stopped acting like that stubborn parent who clearly needs hearing aids but insists they can hear "just fine." But after a few days of living with Alexa+, I started to wonder who greenlit this thing and said, "Yes, this is ready for the public." Responses took longer, she got confused more easily, and at one point she responded to a weather question by playing a Pitbull song. If this is Amazon's version of "intelligent," I'm low-key scared for the future. Alexa+ was supposed to be Amazon's big comeback moment. The company teased a generative AI assistant that could finally go beyond timers and more conversational, more intuitive. One that might actually keep up with ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. But that's not what users are experiencing. Not even close. Reddit users have been quick to call it out. One post summed up the general vibe: "With all totally insane AI advancement the past few years, how come Alexa is still as dumb as 10 years ago?" wrote u/MarinatedP. That earned a pitch-perfect comeback from u/holdmypurse: "Sorry. I don't have an answer for that." Another commenter, u/deicist, speculated that the problems might be by design: "They've deliberately been removing features from Alexa for the past couple of years so that Alexa+ seems like a massive upgrade worth paying for." Related: Amazon and Walmart are pushing for even faster deliveries To be fair, this is still in the early access phase and is technically a beta. But when Amazon promotes something as the future of voice, users expect more than slower responses and recycled features. Some users are cautiously optimistic. As u/southernhope1 put it, the new experience "feels better." But others, like u/Rattus-Norvegicus1, weren't as kind: "Alexa got dumber, if that is possible." The backlash and mixed reactions raise a bigger question: what does this mean for Amazon's long-term AI strategy? Smart assistants aren't just a convenience. They serve as a gateway to Amazon's entire ecosystem. When Alexa works, she powers shopping, streaming, and smart home habits that keep people locked into the brand. But when she stumbles, users take notice. Voice assistant usage in the U.S. continues to grow, with projections estimating 154.3 million users in 2025 and 170.3 million by 2028. Despite that growth, Amazon is no longer leading the pack. According to eMarketer, Alexa has about 77.6 million U.S. users in 2025 so far, trailing behind Google Assistant (92.4 million) and Apple's Siri (87 million). If Alexa+ can't shift momentum, Amazon risks more than just falling behind in AI. It could lose its role in how people interact with technology altogether. While competitors are finding ways to weave AI into nearly everything they do, Amazon is still struggling to make Alexa sound competent. And that's what makes this so surprising. This isn't a scrappy startup. This is Amazon: a trillion-dollar company with endless resources and a multibillion-dollar stake in Anthropic, the company behind Claude. Yet Alexa+ still feels like it's stuck in 2016. If this is what Amazon came up with after years of development, it feels more laughable than alarming. All we can do now is hope the official version is better. And in the meantime, I'll be over here asking Alexa to set a timer - just for fun, since it probably won't go off. Related: Beloved cereal goes 'serial killer dark' for new ad The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Over a million people now have access to the gen-AI powered Alexa+
More invites to Amazon's upgraded digital assistant, Alexa+, powered by generative AI, have been steadily rolling out. The service, first announced in February, now reaches over a million users, Amazon confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. However, Alexa+ is not yet publicly available. Instead, Amazon has been working through its waitlist, sending out invites to those customers who originally signed up to test the service when it became available. Over the past several weeks, many people have shared on social media that they've received an invite to try Alexa+, whose service offers more natural and personalized interactions, smart home integration, and expanded capabilities thanks to AI. Alexa+ is available for free during Early Access and will later be free for Prime customers. Non-Prime users will be able to use the service for $19.99 per month after it publicly launches. Amazon earlier this year noted that invites to try out the new system would roll out in waves in the months ahead. As of May 2025, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Alexa+ had so far reached over 100,000 users, representing only a tiny fraction of the 600 million Alexa devices that had been sold. That number has grown significantly in the weeks since. Alexa+ represents a serious attempt by Amazon to create a generative AI experience for consumers that it can eventually monetize. Though Amazon created a market for smart home-connected, voice-based assistants through its Alexa-powered Echo devices, it wasn't able to turn that traction into a revenue-generating business. Meanwhile, Alexa lost its shine in more recent years as generative AI services, like ChatGPT, took off. Compared with modern-day AI, Alexa began to feel clunky, constrained, and underpowered. Alexa+ aims to bring the digital assistant new capabilities. The service allows users to chat with the digital assistant using more natural language, where you can phrase requests your own way. For instance, you could tell Alexa, 'It's too cold in here,' to have Alexa adjust their smart thermostat. You'll also more easily be able to create routines, search across your Ring camera footage, interrupt or pivot the conversation with the assistant, and more. The experience is more personalized, too, as it saves your preferences and remembers what you like, from favorite songs to recipes and beyond. With its generative AI component, Alexa can do things like summarize long emails you share with the service, create unique bedtime stories, generate quizzes from study guides, make travel itineraries, provide summaries of your smart home activity, and answer other questions, similar to how an AI chatbot might respond. Plus, the assistant will be able to help you take certain actions — like buying concert tickets, booking a dinner reservation, and notifying you when something you've been watching goes on sale, among other things. Initial partners on this feature include OpenTable, Ticketmaster, Uber Eats, Tripadvisor, Grubhub, Yelp, Priceline, Viator, Thumbtack, Atom, Fodor's, and others. While in early access, Alexa+ will initially be available on Echo Show 8, 10, 15, or 21 devices in the U.S. Over time, it will expand to more Echo customers, Fire TV users, and Fire tablet users. Customers who have been invited to try the product are reporting mixed results, with some praising the service, noting it's more advanced than Siri, while others said it's still rough around the edges. (Some early reviews agree with the latter.) It's worth pointing out that Alexa+ is not currently fully launched, but it's getting close. Amazon says nearly 90% of the features it previously announced have since shipped. Sign in to access your portfolio
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's ‘message' to employees: Make no mistake, they're coming, and they're …
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy delivered a stark warning to his 1.5 million employees this week, telling them that artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape the company's workforce in the coming years. In a company-wide memo, Jassy announced that AI agents and generative AI systems will reduce the need for human workers in many current roles. "We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today," Jassy wrote in the June 17 memo, adding that the company expects this transformation "will reduce our total corporate workforce" within the next few years. The announcement affects Amazon's 350,000 corporate employees working in software engineering, marketing, and other white-collar positions. Jassy painted a future dominated by AI agents, autonomous software systems that can perform complex tasks like research, coding, and automation. Jassy predicted there will be "billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field," handling everything from shopping to travel to daily chores. CEO's "fewer people" message targets Amazon's corporate workforce by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Perdagangkan CFD Emas dengan Broker Tepercaya IC Markets Mendaftar Undo Jassy highlighted the company's extensive AI integration, citing over 1,000 generative AI services and applications currently in development or deployed. These range from the next-generation Alexa+ personal assistant to AI-powered shopping tools used by tens of millions of customers worldwide. The company has also rebuilt its customer service chatbot with generative AI and implemented AI across its fulfillment network for inventory management and demand forecasting. Despite the job displacement warning, Jassy framed the changes as an opportunity for employees willing to adapt. He urged workers to "be curious about AI, educate yourself, attend workshops and take trainings," emphasizing that those who embrace the technology will be "well-positioned to have high impact." Read: Amazon CEO's full address to employees Today, in virtually every corner of the company, we're using Generative AI to make customers lives better and easier. What started as deep conviction that every customer experience would be reinvented using AI, and that altogether new experiences we've only dreamed of would become possible, is rapidly becoming reality. Technologies like Generative AI are rare; they come about once-in-a-lifetime, and completely change what's possible for customers and businesses. So, we are investing quite expansively, and, the progress we are making is evident. You can see it in what we're rolling out in Alexa+, our next generation Alexa personal assistant that's meaningfully smarter, more capable, and is the first personal assistant that can take significant actions for customers on top of providing intelligent answers to virtually any question. You can see it with our AI shopping assistant that's being used by tens of millions of customers around the world to discover new products and make more informed purchase decisions. You can see it in an increasing array of shopping features like "Lens" (very cool to be able to take a picture of an item and have it pull up the shopping result), "Buy for Me" (where I can ask our shopping agent to buy an item on another merchant's website for me), or Recommended Size (where we can predict the right size for you based on prior purchases and how different apparel brands run fit-wise relative to each other). You can see it in how we're helping our independent sellers more easily create new product detail pages or get advice on how to be even more effective as a seller in our marketplace. Nearly half a million selling partners are using these services, and the listings they're creating are measurably better. You can see it in Advertising where we've built a suite of AI tools that make it easier for brands to plan, onboard, create and optimize campaigns. In Q1 alone, over 50K advertisers used these capabilities. And, you can see it in what we're delivering in AWS for builders, whether it's custom silicon (Trainium2) to provide better price-performance on model-training and inference, services that make it much easier to build Foundation Models (SageMaker), or leverage leading frontier models and do GenAI inference at scale (Bedrock), our own frontier model (Nova) to give customers leading intelligence at lower latency and cost, or services to make it much easier for developers to write code (Q and QCLI). We're also using Generative AI broadly across our internal operations. In our fulfillment network, we're using AI to improve inventory placement, demand forecasting, and the efficiency of our robots—all of which have improved cost to serve and delivery speed. We've rebuilt our Customer Service Chatbot with GenAI, providing an even better experience than we'd had before. And, we're assembling more intelligent and compelling product detail pages from leveraging GenAI. I could go on, but you get the idea. While we've made a lot of progress, we're still at the relative beginning. There are a few reasons we believe this and want to go even faster. First, we have strong conviction that AI agents will change how we all work and live. Think of agents as software systems that use AI to perform tasks on behalf of users or other systems. Agents let you tell them what you want (often in natural language), and do things like scour the web (and various data sources) and summarize results, engage in deep research, write code, find anomalies, highlight interesting insights, translate language and code into other variants, and automate a lot of tasks that consume our time. There will be billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field. There will also be agents that routinely do things for you outside of work, from shopping to travel to daily chores and tasks. Many of these agents have yet to be built, but make no mistake, they're coming, and coming fast. Second, and what makes this agentic future so compelling for Amazon, is that these agents are going to change the scope and speed at which we can innovate for customers. Agents will allow us to start almost everything from a more advanced starting point. We'll be able to focus less on rote work and more on thinking strategically about how to improve customer experiences and invent new ones. Agents will be teammates that we can call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more helpful with more experience. If we build and leverage the right agents, it's going to rapidly accelerate our ability to make customers lives easier and better every day, and it's going to make our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today. And third, we're going to keep pushing to operate like the world's largest start-up-- customer-obsessed, inventive, fast-moving, lean, scrappy, and full of missionaries trying to build something better for customers and a business that outlasts us all. You will continue to see steam and I take actions to help us move faster, have more ownership, and invent more easily. AI will be a substantial catalyst here. Today, we have over 1,000 Generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but at our scale, that's a small fraction of what we will ultimately build. We're going to lean in further in the coming months. We're going to make it much easier to build agents, and then build (or partner) on several new agents across all of our business units and G&A areas. As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It's hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. As we go through this transformation together, be curious about AI, educate yourself, attend workshops and take trainings, use and experiment with AI whenever you can, participate in your team's brainstorms to figure out how to invent for our customers more quickly and expansively, and how to get more done with scrappier teams. When I first started at Amazon in 1997 as an Assistant Product Manager, I worked on leaner teams that got a lot done quickly and where I could have substantial impact. We didn't have tools resembling anything like Generative AI, but we had broad remits, high ambition, and saw the opportunity to improve (and invent) so many customer experiences. Fast forward 28 years and the most transformative technology since the Internet is here. Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company. There's so much more to come with Generative AI. I'm energized by our progress, excited about our plans ahead, and looking forward to partnering with you all as we change what's possible for our customers, partners, and how we work. Andy AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
