Alexa gets smarter: Amazon turns command-taker into plan-maker with Alexa+ launch
With a fresh infusion of personality, smarts and expertise, a new Alexa − officially, Alexa+ − is about to transform Amazon’s smart home control center from simple command-taker to a perky and pleasant reservation-maker.
But after more than a decade relegated to a corner of the kitchen turning off lights and turning on cooking timers, is Alexa really ready to take a more active role in our lives, handling complex tasks like ordering event tickets, adding kids’ soccer games to the family calendar and finding a shop and scheduling repairs?
More to the point, are we ready to hand over our phones, calendars and get-things-done apps like Grub Hub, OpenTable and Uber to Alexa+? And are we willing to pay for the privilege of a smart assistant at the controls?
As for whether to pay, Amazon effectively kicked that can down the road at its reveal, at least for its 200 million Prime customers. That’s because the $19.99 Alexa+ service will be bundled free in the $14.99-a-month Prime service.
Alexa+ will start rolling out next month. You can sign up for a heads up at the just-live alexa.com site.
Compelling capabilities
At the reveal event, Amazon made a compelling case for Alexa+’s conversational capabilities. You don’t have to worry about being precise. She − Amazon insists Alexa+’s pronouns are she/her − understands English. (More languages coming.) You can interrupt her. You can ask her follow-up questions. She will get you.
Alexa+ is at its core generative AI technology. So consumers’ tolerance may be tested by inevitable mistakes, misunderstandings and downright hallucinations. That said, the more Alexa+ learns about you and understands what you do and what you like, the better the service will get.
After watching you turn on the living room lights shortly before sunset each day, for example, Alexa+ will offer to automate that. And once the system understands your preferences, it will automatically add your brand of pasta to a grocery order.
And of course, the more apps Amazon signs on as partners, the more likely Alexa+ will be able take over and do what you ask.
Prospects for Alexa+
Amazon isn’t the only voice assistance platform getting an AI infusion. Google and Apple have upgraded their platforms. And while Alexa may not be the go-to assistant on smartphones, it is far and away the in-home voice assist leader − and a leading smart home controller as well.
For Alexa, the upgrade in smart home control alone could be a huge benefit for millions. Because rather than opening the phone app and naming every smart light and every room in the house, you can just ask Alexa+ to set it all up.
Unlike Apple and Google, which brag about how much of their chatbot is handled on-device, Amazon really isn’t in a position to do that. Not yet. The reason: The existing Alexa devices you might have in your home aren’t built for it.
That probably will change with new Amazon Echo devices coming available later this year and beyond. For now, though, Alexa+ will reside in the cloud. Though that should lead to better answers − there’s a lot more horsepower in the cloud than there could ever be in an Echo − it may also be challenging to respond quickly.
Bottom line
“Until right this moment, we have been limited by the technology,” Panos Panay, who heads the Devices & Services unit at Amazon, told the event crowd. “Every once in a while a technology comes around and it changes literally everything.”
The new Amazon Alexa+ certainly has the potential to be that technology. Based on the limited view we’ve had thus far, the platform seems to have the personality, the smarts, the contextual awareness and the framework for new capabilities to make itself really useful. Even vital.
Will we give it that chance? We’ll see. Consumers can be brutally impatient with new technology. Remember, it was our low tolerance that put Alexa in the corner at the outset. Is Alexa+ good enough to cut through our frustration-in-waiting? That will be the real test for the platform’s personality and contextual prowess. I look forward to finding out.
Mike Feibus is president and principal analyst of FeibusTech, a Scottsdale, Arizona, market research and consulting firm. Reach him at mikef@feibustech.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeFeibus.