Amazon recently put one of Alexa’s best features–its ability to recognize the sound of smoke alarms and broken glass–behind a firewall, and now there’s talk of charging for Alexa’s upcoming generative AI tricks, too.
Speaking with Bloomberg, outgoing Amazon hardware chief Dave Limp said “we absolutely think that” the company could begin charging for a “remarkable” and “superhuman” version of Alexa, although not for the Alexa that “you know and love today.”
More specifically, Amazon is considering charging a fee for an Alexa that’s powered by Amazon’s new large language model, making it capable of feats such as weaving stories out of thin air, tossing out ideas for recipes, engaging in natural conversation, or other generative AI-powered abilities, according to the Bloomberg story (subscription required).
This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers.
We got a glimpse of this new, “remarkable” version of Alexa during last week’s big Amazon hardware event, where Limp and other Amazon execs took turns chatting with Alexa about football, asking it to compose dinner invites for friends, and even requesting poems written on the spot.
Backed by Amazon’s new speech-to-speech LLM model, the revamped Alexa sounded much more human than the current, everyday version, gamely bantering back and forth, asking leading questions, and even laughing or sounding cheerful or sad, depending on the context of the conversation.
At the event, Limp promised that Echo users would eventually get a “free preview” of Alexa’s “new capabilities.” But during his interview with Bloomberg, Limp made explicit what he only implied during last week’s presentation: namely, that Amazon wants to charge extra for a supercharged version of Alexa.
So, how much would this new Alexa cost? “We don’t have an idea of a price yet,” Limp said, adding that “we’ll talk to customers and learn from them, what they believe the value is.”
As for when this “remarkable” version of Alexa would arrive, Limp declined to give specifics, but noted that “it’s not years away…it’s not decades away.”
Meanwhile, the “Alexa that you know and love today” will “remain free,” Limp promised.
Reached for comment by TechHive, Amazon confirmed Limp’s quotes in the Bloomberg story:
Over time, we certainly think there’ll be enough value in the experience that customers would pay for it. It’s early, but you’re already seeing this happen with other generative AI experiences focused on productivity, or with chatbots on the web—they all seem to have found that customers are willing to pay for the service if they find enough value. As we evolve the capabilities, we hope to learn what customers find valuable—that’s why we want to get this first set of capabilities into customers’ hands.
The Alexa customers know and love today will remain free.
Charging for Alexa–or at least, for Alexa’s new abilities–would help staunch the bleeding at Amazon’s Alexa division, which reportedly lost billions of dollars in 2022.
Leading the Alexa group toward profitability will now fall largely on Panos Panay, the longtime Microsoft exec who will take over for Limp by the end of October.
We’ve already seen evidence of one way Amazon hopes to squeeze more revenue from Alexa: by charging for Alexa’s ability to detect smoke alarm sirens and breaking glass, a feature that used to be free.
Updated shortly after publication with a comment from Amazon.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.