From October, Amazon’s smart Echo speakers will significantly expand the functions of the Alexa assistant with the chatbot AI Claude. The AI does not come from Amazon, but from an external AI developer, and the new functions will entail monthly fees for customers.
New features
With the installation of Claude, the speakers should be able to continue previous conversations and recall previous questions and answers. Alexa should thus become a chatbot AI and be able to provide shopping advice for clothes and summarize messages. But the system should also cover more complicated requests such as ordering food and writing emails.
Alexa will continue to play a central role in the smart home and will be able to process the user’s preferences for alarms or TV shows. Alexa will then be able to record episodes independently and set morning alarms.
Own AI put in the drawer
After a Report from Reuters However, Amazon will not rely on its own AI model, but on Claude from Anthropic.
Amazon invested around four billion US dollars in Anthropic almost a year ago and promised its customers access to the developer’s AI technology. Meanwhile, Amazon’s own AI model ended up in the drawer after it suffered from a long response time and problems understanding how a person Reuters indicates.
Monthly fee for AI features planned
With the introduction of the AI functions, Alexa will be offered in two versions: the “classic” version as a free voice assistant with the current range of functions and the “Remarkable” version for a monthly fee of 5 to 10 US dollars. With “Remarkable” the user then gets access to the AI functions. It is still unclear which Echo devices will be supported.
Presentation in September
According to Reuters, the Alexa AI is scheduled to be released in October, although the unveiling is expected to take place in September at Amazon’s annual hardware event. However, no date has been announced for this event yet.
Last year (overview), the company presented the Fire TV Soundbar, Echo Pop Kids and Echo Frames in Arlington, among other products. A first Large Language Model (LLM) for Alexa was also presented.
