The new Alexa won’t come out of the woods until next year. Amazon’s assistant powered by generative artificial intelligence was planned for this summer, but from postponement to postponement we will have to wait until 2025.
Announced with loss and fanfare in September 2023, the new version ofAlexa was to be launched during the summer of 2024. On the program: an assistant much more gifted at making discussions and answering current questions – in short, something very close to the advanced voice mode of ChatGPT, while retaining home automation device management capabilities and the usual Alexa functions (like timers).
Alexa speaks more but is less practical
But there is a long way to go and technically, the integration of large language models (LLM) into Alexa’s brain still poses big problems. So much so that the launch of what was called “Alexa Remarkable” at Amazon was postponed to October, and now to 2025 according to Bloomberg.
Tests with hand-picked beta testers showed that this Alexa 2.0 was definitely not up to par. Not only did the assistant frequently lose control when managing home automation – which is a real strength of the current version – but he sometimes hallucinated and even boasted!
One of the testers explains that Alexa can add long comments on a current event, for example on the famous “incident” of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe during her performance at the 2004 Super Bowl in duet with Justin Timberlake. Unnecessary details that give the impression that Alexa wants to show off her expertise.
Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, has still not communicated to his troops his vision of Alexa infused with LLMs. However, it will be necessary to put the development of the assistant back on track. And above all to justify the cost of the future paid subscription in order to access the AI assistant.
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Source :
Bloomberg
