Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant, is preparing to make its debut in a completely renewed guise, thanks to theintegration of artificial intelligence. Internal documents obtained from The Washington Post have revealed that the e-commerce giant will launch the enhanced version of Alexa In october, just as competition in the field of AI-powered voice assistants becomes increasingly fierce.
Alexa with AI: launch date and potential
Access to this Alexa 2.0 will require a paid subscription, which could be up to $10 a month. However, users will still be able to use the "classic" version of the assistant for free. Among the new features stands out “Smart Briefing“, a service that will provide daily summaries of AI-generated news, selected based on user preferences.
The new Alexa with AI promises to be more conversational and charismatic, capable of recognizing individual customer voices and asking questions to deliver a personalized experience. The assistant will also help with everyday tasks, such as searching for recipes, and offer a chatbot dedicated to children, called Explore with Alexa 2.0, which will allow exploratory conversations on any topic, in a safe and moderated environment.
But the news doesn't end here. Amazon aims to make the shopping experience even smoother with conversational shopping tools that will allow customers to ask questions about product details and prices. Also, a feature called Shopping Scout will notify users when an item they are looking for is on offer.
Amazon's goal is clear: to recoup some of its investment in Alexa through increased e-commerce sales and subscription fees. With over 500 million Alexa devices sold, Jeff Bezos' company aims to strengthen its position in the voice assistant market, but will have to deal with increasingly fierce competition, represented by chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Microsoft's Copilot.
