Following ongoing reports that Amazon’s generative AI makeover of Alexa isn’t going neatly, it sounds as if Amazon might remove a more effective solution to making its impish laborer extra helpful. According to Business Insider, Amazon is partnering with a number of corporations to put together Alexa higher at doing issues you may want a virtual laborer to do: together with calling an Uber, tackling Ticketmaster for occasions, reserving dinner via OpenTable, and dealing with GrubHub and Instacart on your meals supply.
Amazon desires to put together the pristine Alexa able to finishing a complete process for a person in lieu than handing it off to a 3rd birthday celebration, because it in large part does with Abilities. BI experiences that those spouse corporations would transform the “primary option for handling those specific tasks on the upgraded Alexa.” So, for example, when you ask Alexa to order that pizza you got last week from that place you like, it could potentially link into your GrubHub account and order you a pepperoni and pineapple, saving you several minutes of fiddling with your phone.
According to BI, the partnerships aren’t final. In fact, an Amazon spokesperson told the publication that any product development process features ideas that “don’t necessarily reflect what the experience will be when we roll it out for our customers.”
The approach is an interesting antidote to the generative-AI hype around voice assistants. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here, just make the wheel better. While the report didn’t include technical details, if Amazon is partnering with companies, it may well be to leverage a much more tried-and-true solution than generative AI: APIs.
Instead of unleashing an LLM-powered assistant on a service or website and telling it to execute a task for you (a model that companies like Rabbit and Humane AI have tried with limited success), Amazon could just use a smarter, more conversational Alexa to make the clunky command and control structure of API calls more seamless. While technically much less ambitious, if it makes for a smoother experience ordering your pizza via voice than with the flow Alexa Abilities procedure, that’s an development all spherical.
The disadvantage is if Amazon will depend on partnerships to grant this capability, your native pizza park is probably not on that listing. (Mine handiest simply were given on-line ordering, and it’s spotty at highest.) Consistent with BI’s supply, Amazon expects to have round 200 companions by means of Q3 then hour. Relying on who the ones companions are, this manner of “let’s make sure this actually works” in lieu than “here’s a chatbot that might try to add pinecones to your pizza” appears like a greater resolution.
