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Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo, at the Alexa+ launch event.
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: A conversation with Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Echo, recorded at the company’s Seattle headquarters.
Rausch explained the company’s vision for Alexa+, Amazon’s next-generation voice assistant, in advance of its upcoming rollout through an early access program. Alexa+ promises more fluid, natural conversations, integrating with a wider range of services and devices — including the ability to act autonomously on a user’s behalf.
Alexa “has been completely re-architected around large language models,” Rausch said, describing the company’s shift from the rules-based systems that powered earlier versions of the assistant.
It’s a significant upgrade for Amazon’s longtime voice assistant, judging from the live demos that Rausch walked me through before and after the podcast recording.
In one example, Alexa+ acted as an “agent” by booking a dishwasher repair through Thumbtack. It gathered details via voice, filled out the web form step-by-step behind the scenes, and sent a request — showing how it could autonomously complete tasks online and notify the user as it progressed.
Still, it remains to be seen how much value people will find in using their voice for these tasks, versus the familiar simplicity of a smartphone app or web browser.
And at a fundamental level, Amazon is playing catch-up with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and many other AI chatbots in the world of conversational artificial intelligence.
“Alexa is not a chatbot. Alexa is Alexa,” Rausch said, speaking optimistically about how the new Alexa+ will be received. “We think customers are going to love it. … One of the biggest things they’ll love about it is how much they can do with it.”
He also addressed key business questions about Alexa+, including Amazon’s pricing strategy, its rollout to third-party platforms, and how the company hopes to differentiate itself in a competitive AI landscape.
Listen to the conversation above, and subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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Audio editing by Curt Milton
