- Amazon just invested another $4B in Anthropic
- Most believe Claude will be Alexa AI’s brains
- Why isn’t Amazon sharing updates about its popular chatbot?
Amazon Alexa’s 10-year anniversary passed without fanfare and, in particular, without the major AI update we were promised in 2023. Now, though, as Amazon invests over $4b (on top of a previous $4b+) in Claude AI maker Anthropic, the question becomes more urgent: What is Amazon’s AI strategy, and when will consumers and their best Echos get the long-promised AI update? More pertinently, could that change ultimately be Claude in disguise?
Amazon announced the fresh investment on Friday in a blog post and characterized it as a deepening “strategic collaboration.” It is a two-way street in that Anthropic is set to use the vast Amazon Web Services server army as its “primary training partner.” That’s a big deal because one of the key stumbling blocks for these fast-developing generative AI platforms and large language models (LLM) is the processing power needed to train them.
Nvidia, now the world’s most valuable company, has made a huge business out of this. Anthropic, still a startup, needs a tech giant like Amazon to back its AI aspirations.
It is, though, the other side of the deal that interests me and likely interests most consumers, and that’s Amazon’s growing investment in the Anthropic AI platform, specifically Claude models. Currently, they’re underpinning much of the cloud-based AI Amazon provides to partners through its Amazon Bedrock platform. The missing connection, or at least not spelled out, is how this might affect Alexa, which doesn’t even warrant a mention in Amazon’s blog post.
Still waiting on Alexa AI
Launched a decade ago alongside the Echo, Alexa was not the first digital assistant, but most regarded it as better than the first mover, Apple Siri. Echo’s instant popularity and pervasiveness in the home meant that millions of people who had never talked to a digital assistant were soon engaged with something that at least sounded like a basic AI chatbot.
Today’s Alexa is generations behind leading chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot. This is even though Amazon demonstrated a far more intelligent and conversational Alexa AI in September 2023.
The absence of any Alexa mention in the Anthropic news leads me to believe somewhat counterintuitively recent reports that the next Alexa AI will be powered almost entirely by Claude. This will start, I think, with Amazon finally buying Anthropic. I know, it doesn’t have to; Microsoft has gotten away with holding OpenAI firmly at arm‘s length, pouring in money, and getting first dibs on the best stuff without making it an official Microsoft brand.
Anthropic and Claude do not have the brand cache of OpenAI and ChatGPT. Alexa is the bigger and more interesting brand, so why not make Anthropic part of Amazon and Claude the true brains of one of the best-known and most widely used digital assistants on the planet?
I’ve asked Amazon to comment on the progress of Alexa AI and how Claude might factor in but have yet to hear back. In the meantime, I asked Claude, “Will you power the next version of Amazon Alexa?”
As is often the case with these generative AI chatbots, the answer arrived swiftly:
I apologize, but I cannot confirm or speculate about future product partnerships between Anthropic and Amazon. While I’m aware of developments in AI technology, I do not have inside information about specific business arrangements. If you’re interested in the latest information about Amazon Alexa’s technology, I recommend checking Amazon’s official announcements or press releases.
When I asked Alexa the same question, it cited the Reuters report from August:
At least Alexa knows which way the wind is blowing. Now, we just have to wait for Amazon to confirm and then finally deliver the Alexa AI we all deserve.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
