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Investing.com -- Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has announced a significant revamp of their Alexa voice assistant, named Alexa+, which now includes generative artificial intelligence. The announcement was made by Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices and services, during a launch event in New York on Wednesday.
The new service is aimed at making Alexa more conversational and capable of learning from data to improve over time. This is a result of a previously undisclosed project, internally referred to as "Banyan".
Alexa, which was launched in 2014, is a voice-controlled software that is typically found in smart speakers. It can answer user queries, play music, set timers, and serve as a central hub for home automation by connecting internet-enabled devices. For example, it can turn on a light in response to a voice command.
The updated Alexa AI service, Alexa+, will be able to handle multiple prompts sequentially and act as an "agent", performing actions for users without requiring their direct input. This is a significant change from the current version of Alexa, which generally responds to a single request at a time.
The introduction of Alexa+ marks a substantial investment by Amazon, which has poured billions of dollars into Alexa since its inception, with the aim of integrating the service into a variety of devices and boosting sales on its primary e-commerce site.
Panay confirmed that Alexa+ was launched and became operational on Wednesday.
Amazon has not yet provided any details on the pricing of the new service.
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