AI is starting to move into every area of life.
By the end of the decade, almost every device will have AI integration. In other words, this will be the norm rather than the exception.
While implementation is slow, it will expand rapidly.
One company that has been silent in the AI discussion is Amazon. This is one of the leading technology companies yet is rarely mentioned as one of the leaders in AI.
It could be the fact that Amazon is not directly building their own LLM. They are a large investor in Claude, making it the defacto model for Amazon.
Now we are seeing some integration.
Amazon Rolling Out AI Powered Alexa
Here is what we are looking at:
Amazon has begun rolling out Alexa+, its new generative AI-powered assistant, to more than 100,000 early users in a limited preview, months after the company originally scheduled the release for last October.
Alexa is a very popular assistant. There are many who have this in their homes.
From my perspective, it seems Alexa was a rather "dumb" device. It would good for setting reminders and playing some music. However, I am not sure it did much in the way of being an aid other then setting timers.
AI will change all of that.
The fact Alexa is incorporating is a major step forward. Like much with these models, conversations are starting to become the norm. This is what Amazon is looking to do with Alexa.
...positioning the assistant as a more conversational, context-aware evolution of the original Alexa. Last year, Amazon partnered with Claude AI developer Anthropic to help power the new version of Alexa, after Amazon’s proprietary AI fell short of expectations.
It is a move that will put them in the game.
The Quest For Personal Assistants
The Web 2.0 world is a race.
We are looking at companies, which are siloed, all vying to push themselves into the forefront. At risk is billions.
Meta and Google are two companies that seek to develop AI assistants for people. OpenAI is also looking in this direction.
To me, this is one of the major stepping stones of the AI race. It is difficult to see how this will unfold with different companies keeping walls between information. Eventually, this will become a problem as people will require a multitude of different assistants.
That does not seem to make sense.
Of course, one could default to a particular brand. The problem is that whatever is done on Meta, such as ordering there, is not available on Amazon. At the same time, all the Meta info is valuable for an assistant that is designed to monitor activity and provide suggestions.
With data separated, this is not possible.
For now, we will simply watch and see how these companies progress.