Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant seems to be everywhere. Since it was first announced in 2014 with the original Amazon Echo speaker, the voice assistant has gained thousands of new “skills” and comes in a variety of form factors – from miniature speakers to ones with a video camera and a touchscreen. Alexa has been integrated into a wide range of devices including cars, fridges, smartwatches, lights, and security cameras.
The deal, which includes access to the NYT, The Athletic, and NYT Cooking, will have Amazon paying $20 million to $25 million per year, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. In May, the NYT said Amazon will use its content to train AI models and bring article summaries to Alexa.
Alexa Plus’ new agentic AI capabilities are ambitious and show promise, but too often, I had to finish the job myself.
My first impressions after one day with Amazon’s smarter, more conversational, generative AI-powered assistant.
The new Echo Dot Rome Limited Edition will respond to the command “Alexa, speak Roman,” with some colorful expressions in the city’s local dialect.
The €89.99 smart speaker is designed to celebrate the city of Rome, and features eye-catching artwork by Italian artist Ale Giorgini highlighting St. Peter’s, the Colosseum, and the Trevi Fountain.
The smart speaker with Italian flair is only available in Italy and has been released in honor of Rome’s Jubilee.
I always enjoy Pablo Rochat’s delightfully unhinged projects whenever they cross my social media feeds and this one is no exception. It appears to be a work in progress, and really needs no further explanation but I will make two notes: 1) the tiny hats! 2) watch to the end for a great reaction.
An Amazon spokesperson gave the figure to Reuters, adding, “...of course, some are employees and their families, but the overwhelming majority are customers that requested early access.”
However, Reuters says it found no evidence of Alexa Plus in the wild when searching “dozens of news sites” and social media.
Update May 17th: Amazon Spokesperson Eric Sveum emailed this statement to The Verge:
It’s simply wrong to say that Alexa+ isn’t available to customers—that assertion is false. Hundreds of thousands of customers have access to Alexa+ and we’re constantly inviting more customers that have requested Early Access.
[reuters.com]
CEO Andy Jassy shared the stat on today’s earnings call, reports TechCrunch. Given how many Alexa-enabled devices are out there, though, that’s still probably a pretty low number, relatively.
The AI-powered assistant officially launched to a “small number” of customers at the end of March.
[techcrunch.com]
On The Vergecast: the Switch 2, tariff chaos, Microsoft’s best gadgets, and the TikTok ban.
Now, instead of having to go to every platform individually to ensure their product works with each platform, manufacturers can submit their Matter-certified devices to the Connectivity Standards Alliance Interop Lab and get approved for all four smart home platforms in one go.
This should hopefully speed up the process of getting Matter devices onto shelves.
[developer.amazon.com]
On March 28th, Amazon will disable an optional privacy setting that kept your voice recordings local on some Alexa-powered smart speakers.
Here’s a rundown on the changes and what you can do about it if you own an Echo Dot (4th gen) speaker, Echo Show 10, or Echo Show 15 smart display.
Panos Panay told Bloomberg they’re re-engineering Alexa devices for Alexa Plus with new designs and materials, new silicon with edge processing, and better sound. There will also be a new “signature” tier, with the first devices arriving this fall.
He confirmed upgrades to Echo Frames and Echo Buds are coming and hinted at AR glasses and a new “wrist-worn device.” He didn’t rule out a home robot or a smartphone but said they’re focusing on gadgets “that matter the most.”
[bloomberg.com]
We were promised multimodal, natural language, AI-powered everything. We got nothing of the sort.
After nearly 20 years at Microsoft, Panay was ready to dive in.
The new voice assistant has been a long time coming, but it won’t get here all at once.
I grabbed a few minutes with the new Alexa at Amazon’s event and was impressed. Gone is the need for “Alexa speak.” Instead, I created a morning wake-up routine just by talking about what I wanted, and controlled several smart home devices without knowing their names or locations.
Of all the new features Amazon announced for the voice assistant, talking to Alexa and having it reliably understand you is easily the biggest improvement.
That’s according to Amazon’s new devices and service chief Panos Panay, who just took the stage at Amazon’s big Alexa event in New York City.
The engagement metrics he’s referencing are a little unclear, but he says customers used Amazon’s virtual assistant 20 percent more in 2024 than they did in 2023.
The show is set to start at 10AM ET. We’re in a (chilly) line outside, waiting to get live blogging. Follow along for all the big announcements.
A smarter Alexa, new Echo hardware, and a lot of Panos Panay. We’re pumped!
