by Joe Lonergan
On September 20th, 2023, Amazon revealed some of their new devices and their plans for a new generative AI feature. This is now an annual event, called Amazon Accelerate, which happens every Autumn.

The most interesting part of this event was the new Generative AI feature. AI is big in the news everywhere now and we had a feeling Amazon would be making it part of its future. After all, Alexa is AI in its own way already. But Generative AI is going to make this so much more advanced and interactive for everyone. Amazon has reportedly invested $4 billion into AI start-up Anthropic to match and get in line with other tech giants like Google and Microsoft.

Some of the new features available on your Alexa-powered devices are going to include the following.

• Conversational interactions that consider body language, gestures, and eye contact.
• Can combine multiple requests into one interaction.
• Continue conversations without using the wake word “Alexa.”
• Will include A more natural-sounding voice.
• Will also have Expressive responses, including laughter, excitement, empathy, and listening sounds like uh-hah.

These new features will be available to preview in the US soon on devices that users already own, then it will be rolled out to other countries.

So, what does this all mean?
The new Alexa will have a more human-like voice and will be able to hold more natural conversations without being prompted by a wake word. Amazon calls the new feature let’s chat. However, even the experts who did the demo on stage had some hiccups and had to repeat the commands a couple of times. So we can see this feature taking a little while to get used to, but it sounds like a really cool AI innovation.

Alexa will also learn about your habits from your interactions with it, this will also help it to have more natural conversations with users. Alexa will be able to speak in a more cheerful voice if your favourite team wins and show you empathy when they lose. I know! This is scary stuff. It gets better, Alexa will be introducing AI into its control of your smart home, you will be able to say something like Alexa it’s a mess in here and the robot hoover will start cleaning, or say, “Alexa I want to relax,” and it can dim the lights and play some relaxing music.

We can imagine Alexa’s new conversational tone will be good for those of us who like to listen to Kindle books with Amazon’s accessibility reader, it would be great to listen to a book with a more natural voice.

Amazon is also introducing a feature called map view which will create a digital map of a user’s home to make it easier to control smart home devices, it will also make it easier for Amazon to gather more data on their users, but they said this data can be deleted at any time. Map view is available in the Alexa app and the Echo Hub.

On the hardware side of things, Amazon released a fleet of products which we will briefly mention below: We will write about them in more detail when we get our hands on them to give a full review.

The first new device they mentioned was the Echo Show 8 smart display. The Echo Show 8 got its third generation today, along with a slightly new look. The new Show 8 has edge-to-edge glass, a centered camera, and a slightly different shape to its large speaker prism in the back. The third-gen Show 8s sound will get an upgrade with spatial audio, and a feature that can sense the acoustics of the room and adapt its sound to better suit the noise environment. One of the biggest changes is how it reacts depending on how far away from the device you are, if you are close to the device, it will show more items like calendrer and smart home options and if you are far away from the echo show it will only show a couple of items like the weather and news or whatever you decide are your essentials. You’ll also be able to customise your screen settings if you enroll in Visual ID, but this feature is optional.

There is a photo version of the Echo Show also available that acts like an advanced digital photo frame, but it will be at a slightly higher price point and the bad news is Amazon is going to start to charge a subscription to show your photo stream on screen.

Echo Pop Kids
Other interesting devices included the Echo Pop Kids smart speaker. This will come in two styles avengers and Disney Princess and is optimised for kids. It will have an explore with Alexa feature mode that will be based around having conversations with kids on science and nature.

Amazon as usual released updated Firesticks and an Amazon soundbar for your TV. If you are into your smart glasses, they released an updated version of the Echo Frames with improved battery life, up to 6 hours, and of course, access to Alexa to play music and carry out other commands on the go.

The Amazon Echo Hub is like a tabletop tablet or a wall-hanging smart hub for mostly controlling your smart home a bit similar to the larger Echo Show, but details were thin on the ground on this device.

Eye Gaze on Fire TV Max 11 tablets
Another interesting feature that was released was Eye Gaze. While it may not be useful for most people with vision impairments it is a very useful area of accessibility for Amazon to venture into. This is the first Alexa feature that supports users with mobility or speech disabilities. Eye Gaze allows customers with Fire TV Max 11 tablets to glance at their devices to play music, make calls, and access smart home controls.

So that’s it for the Amazon Fall event this year hopefully there is something there to whet your appetite. We look forward to trying out some of the Generative AI features when they become available to preview in this country.