(Arlington) Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, will be equipped with generative artificial intelligence (AI), the company announced Wednesday, signaling the e-commerce giant’s entry into the race to deploy this technology and cloud computing.
Voice assistants such as Alexa or Siri (Apple) are often considered perfect candidates for integration with programs like ChatGPT, capable of interacting with humans in natural language and producing all kinds of content on demand.
Thanks to generative AI, Alexa should be able to compose a message to send to a contact or a recipe based on the ingredients available to the user, all on a simple verbal command in the living room or kitchen.
“It’s going to take some time to integrate these technologies into the Alexa ecosystem,” acknowledged Dave Limp, Amazon’s senior vice president of devices and services, during a presentation in Washington.
“But I’m very optimistic and I think we’re off to a great start,” he added.
An English-language version of Alexa AI will be available as an option on all Amazon devices (like Echo smart speakers) in the United States in the coming months.
Alexa, Siri and even Google Assistant have evolved little in recent years and have not become very profitable products. They are mainly used to give the weather forecast, play music or control household appliances.
But the race for generative AI, dominated by ChatGP (OpenAI), Google and Microsoft, could change the situation.
According to Dave Limp, thanks to the latest generation of AI, Alexa will soon be able to abandon its robotic tone and create a semblance of a personal relationship with users, in particular by informing them about their habits or their favorite sports teams.
“For example, you could say ‘Alexa, every morning at 8 a.m., turn on the coffee maker, open the blinds, dim the lights in the office and play the morning news’ and voilà, it creates a routine,” he said. he detailed.
Daniel Rausch, head of Alexa, told reporters that Amazon will put more emphasis on AI accuracy, to avoid the risk of inappropriate and invented responses seen when interacting with ChatGPT or Bard (Google). .
“Accuracy in a connected home means that yes, we have turned on the right light, we have locked the right door, we are sure of the status of the security system,” he said.
Amazon also showed off its latest centralized appliance control device (the Echo 8), as well as a TV speaker and new AI-powered search tools for its FireTV service.
