Amazon announces February product event

Amazon sent out invites today for a February event in New York City. The individual invites give little clue as to what will be announced at the event, which will be hosted by Panos Panay and the Amazon Devices & Services team on February 26th.

However, the blue swirly logo behind the words “You’re invited” does give off strong Alexa vibes, which originally made us think that the company will finally officially launch its new supercharged Alexa digital assistant. Then we found further evidence that’s the case by piecing together the five different invites Amazon sent out and discovering that, in fact, they spell Alexa.

Amazon skipped its traditional Fall hardware event in 2024 amid rumors it was struggling to get its smarter Alexa in suitable shape for launch. The company announced a new, better Alexa powered by LLMs in September 2023 but has yet to ship this promised improved digital assistant. The company has said it plans to charge for the new Alexa, but Reuters reports the company initially won’t charge for it.

This will be the first big event hosted by Panos Panay since he joined the company from Microsoft in 2023, replacing Dave Limp as the head of Devices & Services at Amazon. He hosted a small event for media when the new Kindles were launched in October of last year. Devices & Services is the group responsible for Echo smart speakers, Fire TVs, Kindles, and Alexa, among other products.

Update, February 5th: Added our discovery that event invites spell Alexa and a link to Reuters’ article about Amazon’s plans.