Hardly any service offering is as closely associated with the Amazon name as the Alexa voice assistant, which is a key (perhaps most important) selling point for the company’s many Echo speakers.
But the synthesized voice, rated by many users as the best voice assistant on the market, is definitely not profitable.
The CEO is looking for potential savings
In recent years, the Amazon department responsible for Alexa and associated Echo devices is said to have reported annual losses of up to five billion US dollars.
What consequences will it have for language assistance and its further development in the company, is currently the subject a spend audit led by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
Jassy inherited the position from company founder Jeff Bezos in the summer of 2021 and is said to have started a debate within the group about whether Amazon should continue to expand Alexa capabilities or, looking for savings opportunities on costs, including in the Alexa department. The red pen will start.
Many users use Alexa very little
While Alexa itself has countless users, many of them would only integrate a fraction of possible Alexa functions into their daily lives.
The Wall Street Journal was midweek reported about itthat Amazon wants to counter the looming loss in value of the company by looking for savings opportunities, which immediately caused the online retailer’s share price to rise again.
It remains to be seen what effect the potential cost savings will have on the long-term range of functions, utilities and functionality of the popular language assistant. It is also possible that Amazon decides to monetize Alexa more than before and increase the share of advertising messages.
