After all, Apple and Amazon have already been deep in this space. The most notable is their attempts to enhance their legacy digital assistants, Siri and Alexa, with generative artificial intelligence (AI). These challenges have led to setbacks implementing some of these advanced features. As a consequence, the assistants are unable to answer questions in much richer, more conversational and personalized ways.
Apple CEO Tim Cook even admitted the company needed more time to help Siri excel with the things it would do well. He painted a picture of all the obstacles that it took just to move the assistant forward enough to use the generative AI effectively. As we found in our research, Siri is good at practical tasks such as setting timers and reading texts. We haven’t seen the promised changes come as fast as we would like.
Needless to say, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was on the same page when it came to the future of Alexa. He noted that today, the majority of these multi-step AI agents, such as Alexa, are off the mark. On average, performance is now between 30% and 60%. This reality has made moving to more progressive facilities that much more difficult. And Amazon, in February, launched Alexa+, a premium version of its personal assistant. This change encourages Alexa to create entirely new answers on the fly. This new iteration looks to build in features similar to what’s available in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Even though Alexa+ is poised to shake up the event world, it rolled out without some basic features. Users have noted the absence of features such as the ability to utilize third-party applications like GrubHub, generate bedtime stories for children, or brainstorm gift ideas. These constraints serve to illustrate the challenges that remain in Amazon’s journey to turbocharge Alexa with generative AI.
Jassy emphasized that the company has significant plans for enhancing Alexa+ in the coming months, indicating a commitment to improving functionality. He challenged himself to create a Nova Act, the web-browsing agent that is the brain behind Alexa+. His goal? For it to have a stunning 90% accuracy rate in its responses. Today, there are around 600 million Alexa devices in active use globally, which is an incredible user base looking to be wowed with improvements.
Like Apple, Amazon and Google are racing against the clock to innovate their digital assistants while keeping up with evolving consumer expectations. Incorporation of generative AI is a transformative leap in how these assistants will function and serve the user. The complexities of implementing such technology mean that both Apple and Amazon must navigate a challenging landscape before achieving their goals.
