We've been waiting for Amazon's AI reboot of Alexa for almost a year, but some new leaked documents suggest the upgraded voice assistant will finally be released soon with new features.
The Washington Post reports that it has obtained “internal documents” that reveal some of the new features of Alexa AI, as well as a possible “mid-October” release date. The new voice assistant will apparently cost “$10 per month,” with the current version of Alexa remaining free and being rebranded as “Classic Alexa.”
The pricing does not appear to be final yet, and documents reviewed by The Washington Post indicate that Amazon plans to “determine pricing, subscription structure and product names” later this month.
But it seems very likely that Amazon plans to lure us into a monthly subscription to its conversational voice assistant, which it first teased in September 2023. Since then, Amazon has released its AI-powered Rufus shopping assistant and, as it told us in July, has quietly “integrated generative AI into various components of Alexa.”
What will the new Alexa AI be able to do? According to the leaked documents, there are five features that will entice you to subscribe:
1. Smart Briefing
(Image courtesy of Amazon)
Amazon seems keen to release an AI-powered Alexa before the US presidential election, and for good reason: one of its key features will apparently be a new “Smart Briefing” feature.
According to the leaked documents, these will offer “AI-generated daily news summaries” of news articles “selected based on customer preferences.” This would be a significant upgrade over the existing Alexa, which doesn't handle political questions very well — and Amazon will obviously need to be confident in the accuracy of Alexa's responses in such a crucial year.
Still, it's clearly a highly requested feature, with Amazon's materials stating that “AI capabilities to help customers curate, summarize, and explore current events also ranked as one of the most frequently received customer requests.”
2. More personalized responses
(Image credit: Amazon Mexico)
According to the Washington Post, leaked Amazon documents suggest that the new AI-powered Alexa will be “more conversational and charismatic” and will “recognize each new customer's individual voice and ask them questions about themselves to learn from them in order to be more helpful in the future.”
The feature itself isn't new, as you can already set up a voice ID with Alexa today to get personalized responses, but it suggests that the Alexa AI will learn about different users by asking (slightly creepy) questions like, “Tell me what you like to do on the weekend.”
Apparently, you can also tell the voice assistant about your family's dietary restrictions, and it will take that into account when suggesting recipes. It's unclear where and how this information is stored, but it certainly seems like a useful feature, as long as you're happy with the privacy trade-offs. Speaking of recipes…
3. Help with cooking
Leaked Amazon documents seem to include the observation that “meal assistance ranked as one of the top three areas where customers want more help from AI,” meaning helping with recipe searches seems like another key focus for the new Alexa AI.
No further details are available on how this will be achieved. Has the new Alexa been trained on approved recipes from the likes of BBC Good Food? We don't know yet, but hopefully it won't “hallucinate” too much — that is, make up stories. We'd rather avoid making a fish omelette or recreating some terrible TikTok nightmare.
(Image courtesy of Shutterstock)
It wouldn't be an Amazon AI assistant if shopping wasn't at the heart of Silicon Mind, and helping you find new impulse buys looks set to be another focus for the Alexa AI.
According to the leaked documents, you'll be able to ask the smart speaker questions like, “Are there any sales on headphones?” or “What colors of shoes do you have?” Even better, a new product called Shopping Scout will supposedly let you know when something you're considering buying goes on sale.
This may be useful during Black Friday sales, but these sales can be questionable, so it's best to verify your results with tech experts like TechRadar. Also keep an eye on Amazon's subscriptions, which seem designed to encourage subscription purchases.
5. AI Assistant for Kids
The Amazon Echo Dot (above) has previously had special editions released for kids (Image provided by Amazon)
This is perhaps the most controversial new feature for Alexa AI, as The Washington Post reports that Amazon hopes its revamped shopping assistant will be “appealing to kids.”
According to the leaked documents, the new experience, called “Explore with Alexa 2.0,” will allow authenticated kids to have “exploratory, two-way conversations with Alexa about any topic.”
Amazon appears to be insisting that the experience will be “safe and supervised,” but there has been some debate in the past about whether smart speakers are actually safe for children.
All AI-powered assistants are capable of hallucinating to some degree, and that weakness could make the situation even worse, but we'll reserve judgment until Amazon's new Alexa AI assistant is released, likely in mid-October.
