Amazon, the company that sells everything from toilet paper to telescopes, is facing a financial conundrum: Alexa, their voice assistant, isn't profitable. Despite selling over half a billion Alexa-powered devices globally, the technology has yet to make a profit since its launch in 2014. This has led Amazon on a desperate quest for new revenue streams, even as Alexa faces stiff competition from rivals like ChatGPT and Apple's upgraded Siri, which will include Apple Intelligence features later this year.
The solution? Make Alexa more expensive. Reports suggest Amazon is planning a major overhaul of Alexa, including a premium version with a monthly fee of $5-$10. This "Remarkable Alexa" tier, slated for an August release, promises a more powerful AI for handling complex queries. This move comes after Amazon laid off hundreds of employees in the Alexa division late last year, a move that now seems ironic given the renewed focus on the voice assistant.
The irony doesn't end there. Amazon seems to be betting on a paid, premium version of Alexa at a time when users are already bombarded with subscription services for nearly everything. It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off. Perhaps Amazon, instead of asking users to pay more, should consider teaching Alexa some new tricks. Like, for instance, how to turn a profit. Maybe this "Remarkable Alexa" can finally tell us what we really want: a voice assistant that doesn't require a subscription to function properly. After all, asking users to pay extra for functionality that was previously included for free is not exactly a recipe for customer satisfaction.