this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2024
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Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.

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[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 184 points 5 months ago (20 children)

Alexa was never supposed to make money by itself. It was supposed to do two things, collect information and lower the barrier to buying things.

They must have either collected enough data to lower the value of collecting any more, or they have realized that people got over the novelty of asking Alexa to order more dog food.

My guess is the latter, because buying anything from Amazon now requires 15 minutes of research to make sure it's actually what you want and not at some ridiculous marked up price. I wouldn't trust Alexa to pick the best result on the first try.

[–] DJDarren@thelemmy.club 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I’ve had a few Alexas over the past five years or so, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used any of them to actually buy anything. They’re all glorified Bluetooth speakers for my phone.

[–] cosmicboi@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Alexa makes an excellent weatherperson :)

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