As AI changes up the voice assistant business, Amazon is reportedly looking to start charging a paid fee for Alexa as soon as this Summer.
Business Insider reports that Amazon has plans to revamp Alexa with AI this year, and debut that updated assistant as a paid product in the coming months. The new service, currently called “Alexa Plus,” could arrive as soon as June 30 and is apparently already in testing with thousands of customers with the base technology known as “Remarkable Alexa.”
The problem? Apparently, the new AI-driven service is bad.
Amazon employees cited in the report claim that this new form of Alexa is good at having conversations, but is bad at doing anything that’s actually useful. Answers are said to be extremely long and often inaccurate, with AI “hallucinations” also apparently being quite common. A particular pain point appears to be multi-step requests that interact with multiple backend services. A point of friction internally seems to be that longtime Alexa employees are forcing Amazon to keep portions of the original product, which is said to be “bloating” the new version.
Top comment by Ryan Bayne
Tempted to get rid of our three devices - I'm not being even further tethered to a corporation under the illusion that my life will be easier. Already a Prime member and playing music on and these things hasn't been fun at all recently. I'm tempted to use a radio and get the few preset stations - show the kids how simplicity will result in more money in the pocket. I can use my phone for reminders and I won't need to keep asking Alexa to "delete notifications".
As a result, employees are pushing Amazon internally to delay the launch, and many don’t believe customers will actually be willing to pay for the service.
It’s not surprising that Amazon wants to start charging for Alexa, though, as the voice assistant reportedly loses money for the company. With AI being even more expensive for these sorts of products, trying to charge a fee totally makes sense. But, if these employee stories are accurate, it certainly sounds like it would be in Amazon’s best interests to hold off for a while until things, well, actually work.
Would you pay for a voice assistant like Alexa?
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