Leaked internal memos obtained by Fortune highlight several technical concerns regarding the planned AI reboot for Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant. One critical flaw is latency, which is the time it takes for an AI assistant to respond to a query.
The latency problem is bad enough that several testers internally have given low scores to the new assistant. Testers gave it an average score of 4.5 out of 7, less than the team's target of 5.5 out of 7. The team fears that if the product is released in this state, it will frustrate users.
The memo highlights that "latency remains a critical issue" that will "require significant improvements." Another major problem is that some older Echo speakers may be incompatible with the new assistant.
“Generative AI offers a huge opportunity to make Alexa even better for our customers,” Amazon spokesperson Lauren Raemhild told Fortune. "And we are working hard to enable even more proactive and capable assistance on the over half a billion Alexa-enabled devices already in homes around the world.”
The team has also faced various technological and bureaucratic hurdles, like the lack of data to train its AI model or resources being shifted to work on Gen AI for Amazon's cloud computing division. According to the memos, the relaunch of Alexa has been delayed at least thrice, with the latest being November 14, 2024.
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