Leak: Amazon is planning a super Alexa and hopes to earn good money with Alexa Plus

At the end of January last year, Dave Limp, former head of hardware and devices at Amazon, left no doubt that the industry giant still hopes to turn a profit with its loss-making voice assistant Alexa. At the end of January 2023, Limp emphasized that, despite major restructuring and job cuts, the internet giant was still sticking to Alexa and would earn more money in the future with new AI functions.

Leaked Amazon documents published by Business Insider (BI) now reveal how Amazon aims to achieve this. According to these documents, Amazon is upgrading its Echo voice assistant for the introduction of a new paid subscription model. The new subscription model, named "Alexa Plus" for now, will offer more entertainment and personalized AI features.

According to insider information, the Amazon Alexa development team is currently working according to a very tight schedule and has a deadline of June 30. The voice technology in development, called "Remarkable Alexa", has already been tested by 15,000 external customers, says the US report. Amazon aims to offer the new, paid subscription "Alexa Plus" to customers in 2024.

For a fee, Super Alexa will offer Amazon customers more conversational and personalized AI technology. However, the quality of the answers given by the new "Remarkable Alexa" does not yet meet expectations, according to BI. The new super version of Alexa currently still provides inaccurate answers, takes too much time and shows weaknesses when answering ambiguous queries.

In addition, the planned paid subscription for Alexa is leading to heated debates internally at Amazon about the fundamental direction of the project. According to "informed sources," certain individuals familiar with the project have serious doubts about the idea of whether customers will be willing to pay for Alexa. In addition to a subscription-based Alexa, Amazon is also working on a new web browser-based version of Alexa, the BI report says.