It seems that the new Alexa is still in the developme phase and Amazon has cut off access to the beta phase, including the new “Let’s Chat” phase; As a result, the launch, which was planned for late 2024, will be postponed to next year.
Apparely, the reason for this delay and lack of progress in the developme of Amazon Alexa is the problem of large language models (LLM). The new Alexa is designed to understand users’ more complex questions, but according to a report from TheVerge, it’s likely to fail at some of the most basic things the old version could easily do, like setting timers or working with smart lights.
Amazon’s previous plan to iroduce a new version of Alexa
Amazon originally planned to iroduce and release the new version of its artificial ielligence Alexa in October, but this timetable has been extended to next year. In the original timeline, the new version of Alexa was scheduled to be released on October 17, but Amazon decided to change this schedule and used that date to iroduce its new line of Kindle e-readers. In August, news broke that the new Alexa would come with eropic AI Claude for a mohly subscription fee.
As ChatGPT grew in popularity in the summer of 2023, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy waed to see if a more advanced version of Alexa’s AI could compete with other AI services, and apparely Alexa’s performance was convincing; So Jassi and his colleagues felt their engineers could build a beta version by early 2024. However, Amazon failed to meet its deadline.
Despite the new deadline planning, the new version of Alexa still has a long way to go to fix its problems. Some employees told Bloomberg that the problems had nothing to do with personnel, and were rooted in manageme and a lack of a “compelling vision for AI-powered Alexa.”
