Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa AND EchoIt is in the middle of a great transition. More than a decade beyond the launch of Alexa of Amazon, he was commissioned to create a new version of the Marquee vowel assistant, who is fed by Large language models. While inserted him in my interview with him, this new assistant, nicknamed Alexa+, is “a complete reconstruction of architecture”.
How did your team approached the greatest renewal of Amazon of her vocal assistant? They used TO THE Build the IA, of course.
“The speed with which we are using artificial intelligence tools through the Build process is rather stunning,” says Rausch. During the creation of the new Alexa, Amazon Ai Used during each phase of the Build. And yes, this includes the generation of parts of the code.
Team Alexa also brought generative artificial intelligence in the test process. The engineers used “a large language model as judge on the responses” during the reinforcement learning processes in which the IA selected those that considered the best answers between two outputs of Alexa+.
“People are getting the lever and can move faster, better through artificial intelligence tools,” says Rausch. Amazon’s attention on the use of generative artificial intelligence internally is part of a wider wave of interruptions for the engineers of the software at work, since new tools, such as Anysphere’s cursor, change the way the work is done, as well as the expected workload.
If these types of work flows focused by artificial intelligence prove to be hypenne, then what it means to be a The engineer will basically change. “We will need less people who carry out some of the works that are carried out today and more people who do other types of jobs,” said Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy a reminder This week to employees. “It is difficult to know exactly where it gives itself over time, but in the coming years, we plan that this will reduce our total corporate workforce for the efficiency of efficiency from the use widely from artificial intelligence throughout the company.”
For now, Rausch focuses mainly on the launch of the generative version of AIXA to multiple Amazon users. “We didn’t really want to leave customers behind it in any way,” he says. “And this means hundreds of millions of different devices you need to support.”
The new Alexa+ Chat more conversationally with users. It is a more personalized experience that recalls your preferences and is able to complete the online activities that give them, how to look for concert tickets or buy food.
Amazon announced Alexa+ in a corporate event in February and launched early access to some public users in March, even if this was without the complete list of announced features. Now, the company says that over one million people have access to the updated vowel assistant, which is still a small percentage of potential users; In the end, hundreds of millions of Alexa users will have access to the AI tool. A wider version of Alexa+ is potentially expected Later this summer.
Amazon faces the competition from several directions while it works on a more dynamic vocal assistant. The advanced vocal mode of Openailaunched in 2024, it was popular among users who found the voice to the engaging. In addition, Apple has announced a review of its native vocal assistant, SiriAt the developers’ conference last year, with many contextual characteristics and customization similar to what Amazon is working with Alexa+. Apple has not yet launched Siri reconstructed, even in advance, and the new vocal assistant is scheduled for next year.
Amazon refused to give early access to Alexa+ for practical tests (Voice-on?), And the new assistant has not yet been launched on my personal Amazon account. Similar to how we approached the advanced vocal mode of Openi, launched last year, the wired plans to test Alexa+ and provide an experiential context to readers as it becomes more widely available.
