AI Alexo Alex’s generative look is attractive but unproven
Amazon’s long -awaited update to his assistant is almost here. About 18 months after the first company built with a generative AI, it revealed Alexa+And early access will be available in March. Alexa+ will exist with the oldth Alex and will It costs $ 20 a monthUnless you have a first membership that will make it free to use. The new assistant will come with all the modern upgrades that his contemporaries, such as the processed offers of Siri or Gemini, as a more conversational interaction, a better contextual understanding and the ability to “summarize complex topics” and “make suggestions on the basis of your interests.” But this does one thing different, and this is the way Amazon implies integrating with third -party applications and the rest of the Internet that could separate it.
During the presentation, Vice President of Alex and Fire TV Daniel Raush outlined three ways that the new assistant can integrate with other services you use. First, he already works with “tens of thousands” integrations already available, such as Uber, Sonos, Samsung and Xbox, are some of the many logos that were shown when Raush said that. This is supposed to mean that Amazon works with these partners to get their apps to play well with Alexa+ through their API.
Second, for the large stream of the online world that has no applications or resources to encode API only for Alexa+, the assistant should be able to shake the Internet for his website and navigate it on your behalf. During the presentation, Raush demonstrated how Alexa+ managed to go to the Thumbtack website to hire a professional to fix his oven. Instead of having to say a phone or laptop to click on the menus alone, Raush can simply say Alexa+ what he needs and what times he was available, and AI did the rest.
This example more specially struck me as very similar to that of Google Which in 2018 can call the business on your behalf to book a table. All you had to do was tell Google what date and times you were considering, how many people were in your party, and this will make a call to you, even if you speak a human sounding voice at the restaurant. The way Alexa+ would click on websites on your behalf looks like a steroid duplex.
Finally, Alexa+ can work with “AI agents” on other sites, so you can talk to one assistant instead of dozens of chatbots. In the Presentation Raush has made Alex+ work with To come up with a rural style song for Bodega Cats.
After the company’s presentation, I talked to Raush to get more clarity on how Alexa+ would work with the rest of the world. On the one hand, I wanted to know for sure if this third method would work with customer service chatbots from companies such as Capital One, United Airlines and others. While Raush said there were no details to share on specific names or services, he confirmed that “SDK is all about such integrations,” saying that people use Alexa to contact agents on their behalf to perform tasks.
Raush is aware that any friction in the process of adoption and tuning can divert people. For this purpose, upgrading to Alexa+ should not require additional plates or authentication. You need to be able to have all your related appliances, security cameras and home routine procedures that bring without any effort.
“The reason why customers love Alex is that it takes all the complexity,” Raush said. People should not remember the WeMo Plug brand they bought, for example, so that they can tell Alexa to turn off the lamp. “We would never take it,” he said. When you add new services after upgrading to Alexa+, Raush said you either do it “in the ways you do today” or that it will be even easier, as “Alexa can translate you through these settings in many more cases.”
According to Raush, instead of having to “dig in the Alexa app, you just say” Alexa, I want to set up a streaming account with Hulu “or something like that.” You will be presented with a QR code on an Echo device with a screen to make it easier, and the assistant must direct users along the way.
“We like to say that Alex is an expert and now an expert in itself.”
Amazon is not the only company to make its assistant to perform technical support for users. This approach is very similar to how Siri can teach you how to say, shoot video in cinematographic mode, or create Genmoji. Where is it better to get help with the product you use from the product itself? Why make me go elsewhere for information?
“From the point of view of the customer experience, customers just want the thing that has been done,” Raush said. “They don’t have to be responsible or take care of any of these things, right?” He believes that people just want a plumber or reservation, booked and do not want to pick up with websites and phone calls.
People really want their digital assistant to be useful and easy to use, but is it not as important that these AI services are accurate and reliable?
When I asked Raush how Amazon works around the generative tendency to hallucinate and sometimes spread misinformation, he said, “In fact, I think there is a mistake in the industry to think that the model is a product.” He also said that “LLMs are at the heart of architecture, but they are not the only thing that answers the question.”
In other words, Alexa+ uses a combination of Amazon knowledge graphics, reliable Internet sources and partnerships with reputable retail outlets. “Other products will simply answer you from LLM. If you ask for an authoritative answer, this is not really the way to get it. And I think that’s what you emphasize, “he said.
Raush added that Amazon was “caring” with Alex. “Will he make mistakes? Every piece of software makes mistakes, “he said. “But we work hard to think about it in knowledge.”
I will still try Alexa+ for ourselves and everything we have seen so far has been in highly controlled demonstrations, so it is difficult to say what the real implementation of the world will be. But if the new Alexa is really able to work with third -party services in a way that is hassle -free and effective, it will not only return Amazon to the Consumer Competition, but could give it a preference to the likes of Google, Apple and Openai. Given that Amazon really brought the idea of ​​a virtual assistant in homes around the world, this can also have an impact that goes beyond the technology users of today’s AI services.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazons-genetiive-ai-vision-Ah-lexa-is-apealing-but-unproven-140014416.html?src=rs=rs
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