As for the new Amazon Alexa+ very good – but is this enough in the era of ChatGPT?

What is this, the first impression depends on a practical experience with the new Alexa from a person who was previously a fixed user for the Amazon original audio assistant. At that time, I relied on Alexa on this type of direct object that many of us do every day: playing music, checking the weather, requesting sports grades, putting time setting devices, and answering the types of questions that school children will get of degree (“Alexa, who will win a battle between the lion and snow leopards?). Certainly, he could not have a conversation like Ai Chatbots.

So I was waiting for a new Alexa and improved for some time, and when I recently received an invitation to “reach early” to the version of Alexa+, I was keen to take it to spin verbal.

It should be noted Amazon I first announced what will become Alexa+ in September 2023, but the launch was launched again and again in the midst of “structural defects and technological challenges”, such as luck It mentioned last JuneAnd then by by Issues related to the extent of slowing down the assistant to respond to complete orders or procedures. In February, Amazon finally Alexa+ disclosure details at a great launch eventBut the service was not widely launched at the time; Instead, Alexa+ little by little, in a gradual approach (Amazon says millions of people can now reach Alexa+). The company said that the main members are not paying anything for the upgrade of Alexa, but non -members will pay about 20 dollars a month after the official launch. Currently, early access has been free for both main and non -elderly members. The company has not officially announced the date of the official official publication.

I have spent some time over the past few weeks to use Alexa+ for some of the same things that we have used the predecessor, as well as trying some new procedures, such as Uber reservation and the restaurant, which is paid by Amazon. My first impression, in short, is that the service is very good. If it was launched shortly after Amazon’s announcement for the first time about an updated version of Alexa in the fall of 2023, I said it is very good. Its conversation capabilities are real and most of them are very liquid. Are the sound situations of LLM -based artificial intelligence an artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT and perplexity? Not in my experience. But it is very superior this way to the original Alexa, so it is likely to be a delightful surprise for those who have not spent much time with these competitors’ services. On several occasions, though, I had to review Alexa by name in the middle of a conversation back and forth-I thought I had just taken a natural stop in the middle of the pronunciation but Alexa thought differently. If these situations continue at all at general, this may not be a breach of regular use, but it will definitely frustrate me – and some others also assume.

Can you hear the music that works?

She also faced some problems in playing Spotify Using the new Alexa, unless I specified that I wanted to run it on the Alexa set in front of me. The tool concerned was the Echo Show 8 inch (Echo with a screen) to test Alexa+ because the technology is not available on some older amazon speakers, including the original box speakers, one of which still sits on a shelf in our dining room. (If you don’t have an echo, you will continue to use the new Alexa+ from the Alexa app.)

The new Alexa told me that Spotify was playing, when it was not. I thought he might have been playing in one way or another on the echo of the old Bringles tube on the basement, but this was not. A spokesman recommended that I change the Spotify virtual device in the Alexa app, but frankly, the Alexa app is not the most easy, and I surrendered after about 10 minutes. Given that playing music is one of the basic and common tasks of a smart speaker, this did not inspire much confidence, but I do not rule out the possibility to look at an environment that will fix the problem.

Other defects that I faced from comedy ranged into frustration. Alexa announced on the screen at the Echo show that Alexa can help me choose a new lunch, but when I inquired from Alexa around her the first time, she claimed that she could not carry out this task.

I also apparently made a mistake, asking Alexa to slow down her modern rhythm at some point so that I can blog some manually written notes. This simple thing started an exchange between the exact minutes in the world in which I will ask Alexa to accelerate or slow down her rhythm, and she was responding to it-but quickly was the opposite of what I was asking for greatly. It took several minutes, but what seemed to be eternal, to correct.

On another occasion, Alexa became innovative with me when it seemed surprising that she had ordered me to simply separate, then re -connect my echo device to try to solve the above Spotify problem. “It is your problem not mine,” was basically the essence of the response. Can Amnesty International offend me? I mean, it will be very ridiculous. But the exchange was a little far away, although it was also moderately entertaining.

On this point, Panos Panay, long ago Microsoft The executive who joined Amazon in late 2023 seemed to head Alexa and a wide range of devices from Echos to Kindles to Fire TV, fascinated.

“We are testing some borders,” he told me in an interview at the company’s headquarters in New York City in early July. “Like, yes, you want a small character from your help, and you want to feel it or be a personality. I think this is good. Where are these limits an interesting question.”

New Alexa tricks

For my daughter, Alexa+was to generate pictures and “paintings” based on audio orders. I have also tried some of the stated “procedures” that Banai and Amazon believed to distinguish Alexa from competitors and turn them into a more assistant agent. I asked Alexa to reserve a reservation for me and my wife at a new local Sochi restaurant, we mean his experience – and finally our children could stay on the weekend with a relative. Nevertheless, Alexa replied that she could not make a reservation in this restaurant – the OpenTable restaurant is not used to book it and this is the only current partner who has Alexa+ in space. Alexa instead offered me the restaurant phone number that … was not exactly what I was looking for. Amazon is likely to end with a deal with Resy, which is the restaurant reservation service used by the restaurant in question. While Banai said more partnerships were in business, he or a spokesman for the details will not confirm.

However, the Uber request via VOICE work smoothly (as soon as I agreed to provide access to my Uber account), although I wonder about the number of times people will choose this experience in exchange for just withdrawing their phones. I have worked on browsing and providing the cheapest football tickets in a close stadium as well, however, again, I wonder if speaking loudly to virtual ticket assistant for 4 minutes is actually the best or more efficient than searching for tickets on my phone or computer.

Banai told me experimental reactions so far “largely positive”, and that “the conversation side” of Alexa+ alone – for the status and response of the indigenous customers – are happy with customers. “It is just part of the kitchen conversation at this stage,” he pointed out, with a focus on a story about his family’s settlement or open questions by inquiring about Alexa+ instead of withdrawing the phone and falling on all the deviations that come with it.

“It is the idea of participating with each other and the presence of an auxiliary ocean there, as I do not run my phone, I do not open an application, and I do not feel attention to anything else on my notifications,” he said.

One of the main warnings is that I couldn’t try all Amazon. Banai stressed that although participating with “traditional features” such as playing music is increasing, the capabilities of family management in Alexa+ are success with the first users and believed they will remain as well. In one examples, I discussed giving Alexa access to the family calendar and then pushing it to the best weekend to move away. I did not try this feature mainly because you cannot link email accounts from work from work Google Or Microsoft to Alexa+, and because the sports calendars of our children spread through many applications that I am lazy frankly to the point that I cannot integrate (yes, embarrassing).

“Please do not reduce the strength of this”

Panay has also highlighted the shopping tools with Alexa+ that notified you when a specific product is sold. He emphasized the ease of Alexa users who equipped their home with smart devices – to think about smart lights and smart locks – they will be able to speak to a complex routine.

“Alexa, every night at 8:30 pm, start overwhelming lights at home and then closing the doors,” he said, for example.

Panos said these four separate orders in one sentence, compared to what could have been taken at least and a half step within the Alexa application previously.

“Jason, please do not underestimate the strength of this,” Banai urged me.

One of the methods that Amazon and Panay can take a little low expectations and then excessive excess after long waiting. After all, the original insertion of Alexa actually occurred in a way that really reduced; He was buried in a larger advertisement that reveals a sudden device called Echo.

But this may be dangerous in itself, especially amid the awareness that the famous former apple designer Jony Ivee now helps Chatgpt-Maker Openai in the invention of their AI’s device.

“I hope others will make great devices,” Banai said when asked about the competitors.

Perhaps in response, though, The Amazon recently said that it will buy an emerging company that can be worn from artificial intelligence called Bee.

Banai, for his part, admitted that there is still a job to do before the new Alexa is ready to be used by hundreds of millions of current users. After such a long wait – with Panay put itself in high expectations – it is fair to wonder whether it’s “very good” well anywhere in the new world that returns its famous vocal aid in Amazon. It is clear that there is more work to do it.