- Amazon’s Alexa+ AI has just hit 100,000 users in the US
- Yet the firm’s CEO has warned agentic technology is still “primitive”
- Alexa+ is rolling out in waves, but is still missing some key features
Like many other Big Tech firms, Amazon jumped on the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon by launching its own AI assistant named Alexa+ in February. Now, the company has announced that the tool has been rolled out to 100,000 users.
Right now, Alexa+ focuses on providing a conversational experience with an AI chatbot, although Amazon aims to imbue it with “agentic” abilities in the future. That would enable it to work as an agent on your behalf, interacting with third-party apps in order to carry out the tasks you ask of it.
That little tidbit came from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the company’s recent earnings call. There, Jassy explained that “Our intention is for agents to perform wide-ranging complex, multi-step tasks,” and that “there haven’t been action-oriented agents like this until Alexa+.”
Yet the most recent update to Alexa+ is missing some of the key features that Amazon demonstrated in February, as pointed out by The Washington Post. It wouldn’t be the first AI to arrive without promised abilities – Apple’s AI-powered Siri has faced numerous delays and disruptions – and it shows how difficult it can be to pull ahead in the ongoing AI arms race.
Even Jassy admitted that Alexa+ was facing challenges. In general, agentic AI tools are still “primitive,” the Amazon CEO noted, with Amazon’s own Nova Act AI model aiming to improve their accuracy from a mere 30% to 60%. Eventually, the goal is to achieve over 90% accuracy, but clearly Alexa+ isn’t there yet.
Limited availability
Amazon has previously stated that it aims to launch Alexa+ in waves, so we should expect to see availability increase in the US over the coming months. There’s no news about an international rollout yet.
Of those users who have tried it out so far, few have shared their thoughts or given insights into how well it works. That changed recently, though, when user Pretty2be took to Reddit to answer questions on the AI chatbot.
During the session, Pretty2be stated that Alexa+ is good at interpreting natural speech and is able to avoid interrupting you. Other positive feedback included its speech synthesis capabilities, although the user criticized its tendency to push you towards Amazon Music, even when you try to use Spotify.
We don’t know when Alexa+ will roll out to more users, but it’s clear that there’s still work to be done, judging by both Pretty2be’s feedback and Amazon CEO Jassy’s comments. Hopefully the missing features will arrive before the next 100,000 users sign up.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
