AMAZON has tabled plans to introduce a subscription model for Alexa this summer, according to reports citing leaked internal documents.
It appears the new subscription, likely to be called Alexa Plus or Remarkable Alexa, would charge users for premium features.
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These premium features include, but aren’t limited to, Alexa being more conversational and offering more personalisation to users, Business Insider first reported.
Technical issues alongside internal politics have reportedly delayed Amazon’s announcement of the subscription model.
However, internal documents have 30 June earmarked as a launch date, according to the report.
There’s no clue yet on the prices, but it could be bundled with an Amazon Prime package.
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Amazon has doubled down on more sophisticated generative artificial intelligence (AI) integration with its Alexa voice assistant in recent months.
In September, the company announced that Alexa’s responses were going to get a whole lot smarter, and sound more ‘natural’ like a human.
This was all thanks to a new ‘speech-to-speech’ language model that allows Alexa to exhibit human-like attributes, such as laughter and filler phrases during conversations.
During a demonstration of Alexa’s new language model at the company’s Virginia headquarters, Amazon´s devices boss Dave Limp hinted that the company may need to start charging for Alexa.
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This was due to the growing costs of running the AI behind it.
During CES 2024 at the beginning of the month, the tech company unveiled even more new AI features for Alexa.
Now it has emerged that roughly 15,000 customers have been secretly trialling new Alexa voice technology under the codename Remarkable Alexa.
But external tests have found that despite updates to Alexa’s voice technology, the assistant is still handing out inaccurate information – which is largely considered to be AI’s fatal flaw.
It’s unclear whether these plans will ever come to fruition.
What we do know is that it wouldn’t be Amazon’s first time charging for features that were previously free.
Just last month Prime Video customers were left furious after the company revealed that adverts would be coming to the platform.
This meant users would have to starting paying extra for an ad-free experience – a format that used to be a given for streaming sites trying to lure viewers away from standard television.
Adverts on Prime Video came into effect on 5 January in the UK.
What is Alexa?
If you’ve never heard of Alexa, here’s what you need to know…
- Alexa is an “intelligent” personal assistant built by Amazon.
- You can find her on several different devices, including Amazon’s Echo speakers.
- Alexa responds to voice commands, and can talk back to you.
- She can perform thousands of different tasks, including telling you about the news or weather.
- But she can do more complex things too, like ordering a pizza or arranging an Uber taxi pick-up.
- To activate Alexa, you need to say “Alexa” to an Amazon Echo speaker.
- Because she’s powered by artificial intelligence, Alexa is constantly getting smarter.
- Alexa will also get more used to your voice, and better understand what you want her to do over time.
