Amazon achieved a notable milestone when its recently introduced Alexa+ became the first ever to hit 100,000 users. The next-gen digital assistant launched in February 2023. It builds on existing, more limited voice assistants by layering on generative artificial intelligence. This is a notable shift, as it puts Alexa+ in direct competition with other generative AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Alexa+ is fueled by Nova Act, a web-browsing agent that we launched in March. Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, set an ambitious goal for Nova Act to achieve 90% accuracy in its responses. Getting a high level of precision right is very important. Today’s multi-step AI agents are relatively unreliable, operating with an accuracy rate between 30% and 60%. The core functionality of Alexa+ was characterized by Jassy as “primitive.” He knew they had a long way to go and much work ahead to make the product better.
At launch, Alexa+ lacked several desired functionalities. Users found out very fast that it wasn’t able to leverage third-party apps like GrubHub. Further, it was unable to produce great bedtime stories for kids or come up with inventive gift suggestions. Amazon has persisted in moving forward in good faith even with these shortcomings. The company says it has additional functionality planned for release in the coming months.
Alexa+ rollout marks a first phase toward supercharging legacy digital assistants with generative AI. The aspiration here is to go beyond the scripted answers in breach of contract that’s hallmark of legacy solutions such as Alexa and Siri. Of course, by allowing Alexa+ to come up with new and unique answers in real-time, Amazon’s betting that it can fundamentally up-level user experience and engagement.
With an existing base of approximately 600 million Alexa devices in homes around the world, the company sees a vast opportunity for growth and innovation. As more users adopt Alexa+, Amazon anticipates a future where the digital assistant becomes more intuitive and responsive to individual needs.