Many items now come with Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa. But Alexa hasn’t been doing so well in the recent past. Plus, Amazon cuts many jobs as it is trying to spend less money. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become popular. And we have to mention that Amazon’s rivals, Microsoft and Google, have created their voice assistants. So Amazon needs to stop the snowball.
Amazon intends to use ChatGPT to modify Alexa to make it smarter, more entertaining, and more profitable to reverse the slide. According to internal documents obtained by Business Insider, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has a lofty goal. He wants Alexa to think rather than gather information from a database.
Amazon wants to improve Alexa’s entertainment features by adding more unique options, such as interactive video search, tailored suggestions, and story-telling tools. For example, Alexa could suggest Amazon’s original comedy, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, to a customer looking for a show similar to Netflix’s “Emily in Paris” but less focused on fashion and explain why. If the user wants to know more about the suggested program, Alexa can give a brief explanation and play the trailer on a device with a screen. If the user likes the show, they can use voice commands to play it on their TV.
When a user asks Alexa, “What should I watch tonight?” Alexa can suggest things based on what you’ve searched before. The user can narrow down the results by asking extra questions, such as “not too romantic” or “Oscar-winning movies.” Once watched, Alexa can follow up with forums where people talk about the movie. It can bring much more relevant info.
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Amazon Alexa Getting Smarter
As well as boosting video search, Amazon is also looking to improve Alexa’s news summaries and Q&A skills. The same leaked paper reads that Alexa will offer users more in-depth coverage of each article. It will bring news based on users’ preferences. Alexa can also answer questions such as “How many wolves are there in Washington state.” What’s more, it can take users to sources it uses.
Also, Amazon will launch a new story-telling feature. It will be aimed at home users. Alexa will create bespoke stories based on user requests, such as an 8-year-old’s request for a “cat and the moon” bedtime story, which resulted in a story about “Mittens, the first cat to ever go to the moon.” Alexa will also insert characters from Disney’s Frozen into the story, if it knows users like them. Kids can also help build stories or idea maps on the screen of the Echo Show device. The paper also mentions that Amazon might join hands with firms such as Disney and Lego. Aell, this is not anything new. Back in November 2022, Amazon released a unique feature called “Create with Alexa.” The latter allows kids to create animated tales based on prompts.
All of these changes are part of Amazon’s efforts to increase Alexa’s revenue potential. Jesse said during last week’s earnings call that Amazon has sold over 100 mln Alexa devices in the world. He also said they ought to make a more robust language model that should work at the core of Alexa. Jesse believes this will help them achieve their goal of making Alexa the world’s best personal assistant while opening up new chances to earn more.
