Artificial intelligence
Amazon device boss: Don’t lose interest in Alexa
Amazon Devices boss Dave Limp is demonstrating a new feature that allows users to ask the voice assistant Alexa why she did something if they can’t understand the software’s actions. photo
© Andrei Sokolow/dpa
Amazon is massively cutting jobs, and some projects are being put on hold. But the company is sticking to its language assistant – and is relaxed in view of the threat of competition from ChatGPT.
After cutting hundreds of jobs in its device division, Amazon is reaffirming its focus on the language assistant Alexa. “The Alexa team is still by far the largest in my area,” said device boss Dave Limp of the German Press Agency. “We’re sticking to it.” It is true that the assistance software is not yet profitable in itself, but it contributes to the sale of smart home technology and music services, among other things. Amazon also has plans to make more money with Alexa.
In the most recent major job cuts by Amazon, almost 2,000 jobs were lost in this area – almost ten percent of the workforce. In addition to Alexa, the device division managed by Limp also includes the business with networked Echo loudspeakers and other smart home technology, security cameras from the Ring brand, the development of self-driving cars at Zoox and the Kuiper satellite project for Internet supply from space.
After a growth phase, back on a slimming diet
In view of the weakened economic development, one had become too big, said Limp. For the most part, the dismantling has hit projects that the public has not yet heard of. “For example, at Alexa, we invested in some health initiatives that seemed important during the pandemic – but now the pandemic is over and some early testing hasn’t gone well.”
Amazon currently sees no danger for Alexa in software like ChatGPT, which can talk to people. Conversations are just one element of the assistance program. This also included the ability to control the networked home and the integration of music and audio book services. Amazon also spent a lot of time giving Alexa more character. “ChatGPT doesn’t really have personality.”
The ChatGPT software from the developer OpenAI has been causing a stir since autumn because it mimics human speech so well that it can write various types of texts, including screenplays. The program was trained for this with enormous amounts of speech data. According to Limp, Amazon uses a similar approach to automatically adapt Alexa for different languages. “We used to have to train the models separately for this.” Overall, it’s good that ChatGPT is getting so much attention: “Because it shows what we can achieve.”
At the same time, the group points to the growing use of Alexa. In Germany, for example, the number of customer accounts that interact with the language assistant increased by more than a quarter last year. Around 30 percent more users used Alexa to control their smart home and more than 50 percent used it at least occasionally for shopping. Amazon does not give more precise numbers.