Amazon has ambitious plans for expanding Alexa. Deploying it as an AI agent will allow Alexa to perform tasks independently.
CEO Andy Jassy explained that during a call about financial results. He does not specify exactly how Alexa will function as an AI agent. In any case, an AI agent can handle a series of tasks independently without human intervention. Many software vendors are currently implementing such AI. For example, AI agents are deployed in customer service to provide near-autonomous first-line support.
“I think that the next generation of these assistants and generative AI applications will be better at not just answering questions and summarizing, indexing, and aggregating data,” Jassy gives a small glimpse into the future of Alexa.
Positioning Alexa
The Amazon CEO added that Alexa’s brain is being restructured using a new foundation model set, which is expected to be unveiled soon. Several months ago, the company announced that Alexa would be equipped with generative AI technology. Amazon reportedly is experiencing technical challenges with its existing models and may switch to models from Anthropic, although this is still unconfirmed. However, Amazon has invested heavily in Anthropic.
Hundreds of millions of Alexa devices have been sold, but Amazon continues to look for new ways to position the product. Most applications are still in the consumer market, although Alexa is also used for business. It will be interesting to see if Alexa will move more toward the business market as it moves into AI agent mode.