For months, there has been speculation that Amazon will launch a new version of Alexa, its popular digital assistant, powered by generative artificial intelligence features. In fact, we wondered at MCPRO last July whether the delay of Jeff Bezos’ company might put Amazon’s position in this area in trouble.

Well, information from Reuters to that effect assures that not only will the new assistant launch next October, but instead of using the custom LLM, will be powered by Anthropic AI models (Claude, Claude Pro, Claude Sonnet)a company in which Amazon has a small stake.

As previously speculated, this smarter Alexa (dubbed “Remarkable”) will cost $5 to $10 per month to use, and its main function will be to answer complex questions using generative artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, the “Classic” version of Amazon’s assistant will remain free for all users.

According to sources consulted by Reuters, Amazon is working on its own LLM to integrate it with Alexa at some point. If they do not do so now, it is mainly because of the poor performance that the model offers. In the tests conducted, engineers complained on the one hand about inconsistent responses, but mainly that they could last longer than 6-7 seconds, which made the experience unnatural and somewhat frustrating. Hence the decision to choose Claude at least in the first phase.

Although Amazon’s assistant is the most popular among users, the vast majority use it to play music, set timers, answer some very specific questions, or act as a home automation hub to control lights, plugs, and appliances. In other words: society failed to convince users to use it to make purchases on the platform and therefore the division remains unprofitable.

This led not only to layoffs, but also to a requirement that Alexa become the company’s main source of revenue from 2024, so this premium subscription is the first step. When asked about this information, a company representative said: “In terms of machine learning models, we started with models created by Amazon, but we have used and will continue to use a number of different models, including (Amazon’s artificial intelligence model) Titan and future models from Amazon i models from partners to offer customers the best experience.

What can we expect from the new Alexa?

In addition to answering complex questions with more accurate information, some sources explain that “Remarkable” will be able to hold conversations with the user that are based on previous questions and answers.

On a daily basis, it could also advise users on their purchasing decisions (e.g. which computer to buy according to their needs), order food delivery or write emails in a simple way… all this if the company’s plans are finally confirmed and the new Alexa is finally presented at a device event , which Amazon usually hosts in September.

Some analysts suggest that there are currently around 100 million active Alexa users, and that about 10% of them might opt ​​for a paid version of Alexa. Assuming a low monthly price spread, this would generate at least $600 million in annual revenue.