It’s been well more than a year since Amazon gave us a glimpse of a revamped Alexa, complete with an AI overhaul under the hood. Now there are signs that the AI-powered Alexa is almost ready for prime time.
Journalists (including me) awoke this morning to invitations from Amazon for a “Devices and Services” event hosted by Panos Panay, the ex-Microsoft exec who’s now in charge of Amazon’s Amazon and Echo divisions.
Amazon raised eyebrows last September when it skipped its traditional fall hardware event, so this latest invite quite naturally set the Alexa rumor mill abuzz.
So, what do we know about this upcoming Amazon event, and what should we expect in terms of the next Alexa?
Let’s start with…
The Amazon event is on February 26
The tech press will gather three weeks from yesterday in a Tribeca event space to see… well, something from Amazon’s Devices and Services group.
The date is roughly four months after Amazon normally would have held a full-on hardware event. (Amazon held a smaller Kindle event in October.)
The event will be “Alexa-focused”
Amazon is staying coy about what exactly we’ll see on February 26. The blue invite card itself simply says “Join us,” with the event’s when-and-where details.
That said, a spokesperson told Reuters that the upcoming event will be “Alexa focused,” which is a pretty big hint.
The new Alexa might roll out to a “limited” audience first
Now’s where we head into rumors and speculation. Reuters, which says Amazon will show us the new Alexa at the event (pending a “go/no-go” meeting in the middle of the month), reports that the revamped assistant will roll out to a “limited” number of users at first.
That’s not a huge shock, since Apple and Google are taking a similarly careful approach when it comes to introducing AI to their respective smart home services.
Don’t expect to pay for the new Alexa, at least for now
Amazon has previously floated the idea of charging extra for a new, AI-enhanced version of Alexa, with some estimates putting the price tag in the $5- to $10-per-month range.
But according to another Reuters scoop, Amazon will probably not change for the new Alexa during its initial rollout. Of course, what happens after that is up in the air.
The new Alexa that’s on tap probably won’t sound like the “new” Alexa from 2023
If you were dazzled by the new Alexa demo we got during Amazon’s 2023 hardware event, keep in mind that it was just that: a demo, not a ready-to-ship product.
Subsequent stories have put more emphasis on the new Alexa’s ability to act as an AI “agent” that can fulfill multiple requests, rather than as a loquacious companion with serious HAL vibes.
The classic Alexa will stick around
Amazon has long said that even with a new (and potentially paid) AI Alexa in the works, the “classic” Alexa isn’t going anywhere, and that it will remain free.
That still seems to be the case, with the most recent Reuters story saying that a free “classic” Alexa will still be on the menu
More to come
Whatever happens, I’ll be on the ground in New York to witness whatever Amazon ends up unveiling. Stay tuned.