Has Alexa+ Already Won the AI Battle?
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were introduced to the virtual assistant. “Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes”, “Hey Siri, call dad”, “Hey Google, what’s the weather today?” are phrases we’ve gotten used to over the past few years, perhaps begrudgingly so.
The big tech companies promise all these amazingly useful things we can do with their version of the virtual assistant, but usually that real-world experience is one fraught with frustration. Yes, there are times when Alexa tells me the weather correctly, but I’ve been conditioned to ask it that question along with a handful of other questions. If you stop and think about that right now, I bet you can come up with maybe 5-10 things you can ask your virtual assistant of choice.
This conditioning is more akin to typing words into a search engine. You have to know up front what you are going to ask, without any delays, stuttering, or changing your mind. Input words, output result. Herein lies the problem with virtual assistants…that’s not how a conversation works. So, the virtual assistant is relegated to just kind of being there, only used for very specific tasks.
With the advent of the AI revolution, every tech company has begun upgrading their virtual assistants, all vying for the coveted attention of customers. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and of course OpenAI are the major players, but just about every product or service we use has some kind of AI component. Regardless of which ecosystem you choose to live in on a day-to-day basis, billions of dollars are being invested in these products, all in an attempt to get everyone to use it. The race to become the top virtual assistant will be won by the most accessible, not necessarily the best.
“The race to become the top virtual assistant will be won by the most accessible, not necessarily the best.”
Convenience is the name of the game for mass market appeal. Just like the old adage: “the best camera is the one you have with you”, the same applies to these new AI-infused iterations of the virtual assistant with three important caveats:
Activating AI has to be identical to routine human-to-human interaction.
AI assistants need to be the same assistant wherever the user happens to be.
It needs to be “free”, or the cost baked into an existing service we already pay for.
For example, I have a Google Pixel phone that I take everywhere, and it literally has a dedicated button to access Google Gemini. I just have to push the button, and I can have a conversation. Easy, right? I hardly ever use it. In fact, I typically use OpenAI ChatGPT app on my phone! Why is that?
When I am on my PC, I’m using ChatGPT because a) it was the first AI I really used, b) I’ve had the desktop app installed and it’s built into my routine now, and c) my phone is either in my pocket or off to the side while typing. To make it even more confusing, I have the Microsoft Copilot app right next to ChatGPT on my taskbar. I’m not saying there’s a lot of logic in my decision, rather that we are creatures of habit, and breaking that habit is going to take something even MORE convenient and easy than clicking a button. That’s the hope for Amazon, as the always “pumped” product man, Panos Panay, got on stage recently to announce Alexa+.
During the announcement, Panay walked the crowd through all the potential use cases of Alexa+ and how you can have a natural conversation with AI. There will of course be integrations with other services such as Ring Camera and OpenTable to do various things for you. None of this is “new” for the industry. We’ve been able to do this with all of the other assistants for quite some time now. In fact, Alexa+ may not even be the best AI after it is rolled out, so why is this a big deal? Panay also announced that Alexa+ will be included for all Prime subscribers at no additional charge. This is huge.
“Panay also announced that Alexa+ will be included for all Prime subscribers at no additional charge.”
Amazon Alexa is already in the most homes due to Echo devices, Fire TVs, kids tablets, Kindle devices, etc. Granted, Alexa+ won’t be available on all those devices right out of the gate, but Amazon’s new iterations of those products will no doubt include the Alexa+ features. Amazon will have their AI in the most homes, and it will be included with Prime. Microsoft’s Copilot was all the rage for a hot minute, but as soon as they announced a price increase, I personally looked elsewhere. I’m not suggesting that the advanced AI services aren’t worth the fees, rather it’s not convenient enough for me to really value it at the price they are needing me to pay. Copilot is on my Windows devices, but not on my phones or in my home anywhere.
Google and Apple have the market advantage with phones being everywhere. Microsoft has the business advantage with Windows/M365. Meta has the social advantage with Facebook, Instagram, and whatever the eyeglasses future looks like. However, Amazon has the biggest opportunity with Alexa+, at least in the consumer arena in my opinion. Time will tell of course, but they have mass market appeal with Alexa already. Now that Alexa+ will be bundled with Amazon Prime, it will be interesting to see how the AI virtual assistant competition race shakes out.
For those of us actively working in the tech industry, regardless of the “winner” in the AI space, we can all agree that AI is a present and future phenomenon that will reshape everything we do. Just like any other major technological advancement, you either learn and adapt, or you get left behind. If you aren’t already training up on all things AI, now is the perfect time to start with our FREE AI-900 course.
Now let’s try that again….
“Alexa, play that song I heard at the coffee shop yesterday while I’m studying. It had a kind of mellow beginning I think.”
“Sure, playing Baby Shark from Spotify”
We’re all doomed.
