Amazon (AMZN-1.71%) is gearing up for a “brand new lineup of devices” to launch this fall that will accompany the tech giant’s latest AI venture, CEO Andy Jassy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday.
Amazon unveiled Alexa Plus, its long-awaited generative AI version of the popular virtual assistant Alexa, on Wednesday. The model and its companion gadgets are intended to go beyond the duties of a traditional virtual assistant and help users with everyday tasks like making reservations or hiring someone to fix your oven, Jassy said.
“It really is the first big, large scale practical use of generative AI [that] the consumers are going to be able to see and use naturally,” Jassy said.
The upcoming companion devices are only one part of what Jassy deems Alexa’s own “sustainable” business model.
“We have opportunities to service new products and advertising in various interfaces, like our mobile and our desktop interface that’s coming in Alexa, and then we have subscriptions,” Jassy said.
Alexa Plus, essentially the company’s answer to Google’s (GOOGL-1.66%) Gemini, will start rolling out in some Amazon devices next month. It will be free for Amazon Prime subscribers and will cost $19.99 for non-Prime users.
With Alexa Plus and the company’s focus on building generative AI capabilities for its cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services, Amazon is putting all bets on AI.
“We’re spending a pretty significant amount of CapEx, and the lion’s share of it is on generative AI,” Jassy said.
The Alexa Plus product was at the center of investor worries last year when former employees told Fortune Magazine that the company struggled to mesh the existing Alexa technology with generative AI. At the time, Amazon claimed the employees were incorrect.
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