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There's Alexa+ [0] which uses generative AI but it's planned to be a paid option at $20/mo. [0]: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-generative-

There's Alexa+ [0] which uses generative AI but it's planned to be a paid option at $20/mo. [0]: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-generative-artificial-intelligence https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-alexa-generativ...

HuwFulcher 1y ago
Yes have seen about that. It’s crazy to me that they still haven’t released it. Really think it could save a dying product
serial_dev 1y ago
Alexa consistently fails with the simplest of questions. Only thing it can do is set a timer, turn off a light and play music. It is still nice, but it’s so frustrating when a question pops into my mind, and I accidentally ask Alexa just to get reminded yet again how useless it is for everything but the most basic tasks. And no, I won’t pay 240 dollars a year so that I can get a proper response to my random questions that I realistically have only about once a week.
- bboygravity 1y ago
  Just pay 0 USD and use Grok app for free? By far the best thing currently available.
  - echelon 1y ago
    I'm predicting that Grok fails simply due to half (?) the software engineering populating not wanting to use anything Musk has developed. Grok has to be more than n-times (2x?) as good as anything else on the market to attain any sort of lead. Falling short of that, people will simply choose alternatives out of brand preference. This might be the first case of a company having difficulty selling its product, even if it's a superior product, due to its leader being disliked. I'm not aware of any other instances of this. Maybe if Musk switches to selling B2B and to the US government... If you piss off half of your possible user base, adoption becomes incredibly difficult. This is why tech and business leaders should stay out of politics.
    - transcriptase 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - felixgallo 1y ago
        None of that actually happened.
        inquirerGeneral 1y ago
        Literally documented proof.
        felixgallo 1y ago
        Literally not. Elon Musk even published the infamous algorithm which he had claimed silenced and censored right wing voices. The only thing the algorithm did that was odd was that it had a special case written into it to boost Elon Musk. You can go look it up.
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        I think their point was that becoming very involved in politics in a way that alienates half of the population has tarnished Musk’s brand (although, I’d personally adjust that down to more like 1/3). If the point of your whataboutism is that previously it alienated the other 1/3… that doesn’t seem to improve their odds, right? If anything they’ve now pissed off 2/3 of the population at some point or another.
    - redditor98654 1y ago
      Hmmm, thinking aloud, Oracle?
    - rs186 1y ago
      Yeah, a simple example is to just look at how many companies/universities have ChatGPT vs Grok subscriptions internally. I can imagine that many people would have a problem with subscribing to Grok, even if its performance is comparable.
  - kentm 1y ago
    Mechahitler, the South African genocide debacle, explicitly checking Elons Twitter feed, “You get your news from infowars” system prompts, etc have basically made Grok not a real option for me. I do not want to use a product that is specifically being engineered to be a right wing disinformation machine. And no, generic brand safety mishaps are not the same; everyone is not doing this.
- seviu 1y ago
  and despite all this, I would pay 240$ a year so that Siri can reliably do what Alexa does today oh the irony
- ghaff 1y ago
  Alexa has pretty much zero value for me. Being able to just order something with zero shipping has a ton of value. I could drive down the street but it would still be an hour at the end of the day. Video streaming has some value but there are a lot of options.
- WaltPurvis 1y ago
  > Only thing it can do is set a timer, turn off a light And it can't even do that without an Internet connection. As someone who experiences annoyingly frequent outages, it never ceases to boggle my mind that I have a $200 computer, with an 8" monitor and everything, that can't even understand "set a timer for 10 minutes" on its own.
  - prmoustache 1y ago
    Why did you guys bought this in the first place?
    - serial_dev 1y ago
      Fair question, playing music and timers are nice, but their AI is abysmal so you can imo not ask it to do anything else. I previously worked for a smart home company so I wanted to test out product’s integration with Alexa, so we have some at home. I’m planning to get rid of them, though, and only leave one in the kitchen.
    - WaltPurvis 1y ago
      Originally bought it for an elderly parent in assisted living; wasn't as useful as we'd hoped; repurposed it as a kitchen-timer/music-box, for which it works adequately as long as the Internet connection is up. I would not recommend anyone else buy one.
iLoveOncall 1y ago
It will be free if you have a Prime subscription (which means nobody will ever pay for it given Prime is cheaper and you get much more included). But the project is pretty much dead, it was supposed to launch in February or March and is still not anywhere close to being out.
spanishgum 1y ago
> Alexa+ costs $19.99 per month, but all Amazon Prime members will get it for free. I'm curious if non prime members make up a big market for Alexa. I rarely use my smart devices for anything beyond lights, music, and occasional Q&A, and certainly can't see myself paying 20$/month for it.
- vitus 1y ago
  I'm curious why anyone would pay $19.99/month for Alexa+ rather than just buy a Prime membership (which is $14.99/month). Unless of course this is going to be met with a price hike for Prime...
  - wccrawford 1y ago
    That's what happened with Prime TV, and I absolutely expect it for the AI, too. And it might finally mean I cancel my Prime membership.
    - x2tyfi 1y ago
      Amazon Prime’s price hikes have a predictable cadence: * 2014: $79 to $99 * 2018: $99 to $119 * 2022: $119 to $139 We should expect a price hike from $139 to $159 in 2026, assuming the trend continues.
      - echelon 1y ago
        Meanwhile, Google Fiber has been the same price for 15 years. At least according to the billboard outside my window.
        ls612 1y ago
        It works out for them because bandwidth gets cheaper over time but inflation eats away at that. $70 today is like $50 back in 2010 when GFiber first launched.
- wenc 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
israrkhan 1y ago
I enabled Alexa+ few days ago on my devices. Everyone in our home immediately disliked the new Alexa. There were some fairly basic things that Alexa+ cannot do, and Alexa was able to do. Some fairly simple question/answering tasks, and questoins about status of an order.

HuwFulcher 1y ago

Yes have seen about that. It’s crazy to me that they still haven’t released it. Really think it could save a dying product

serial_dev 1y ago

Alexa consistently fails with the simplest of questions. Only thing it can do is set a timer, turn off a light and play music. It is still nice, but it’s so frustrating when a question pops into my mind, and I accidentally ask Alexa just to get reminded yet again how useless it is for everything but the most basic tasks. And no, I won’t pay 240 dollars a year so that I can get a proper response to my random questions that I realistically have only about once a week.

bboygravity 1y ago
Just pay 0 USD and use Grok app for free? By far the best thing currently available.
- echelon 1y ago
  I'm predicting that Grok fails simply due to half (?) the software engineering populating not wanting to use anything Musk has developed. Grok has to be more than n-times (2x?) as good as anything else on the market to attain any sort of lead. Falling short of that, people will simply choose alternatives out of brand preference. This might be the first case of a company having difficulty selling its product, even if it's a superior product, due to its leader being disliked. I'm not aware of any other instances of this. Maybe if Musk switches to selling B2B and to the US government... If you piss off half of your possible user base, adoption becomes incredibly difficult. This is why tech and business leaders should stay out of politics.
  - transcriptase 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - felixgallo 1y ago
      None of that actually happened.
      - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
        Literally documented proof.
        felixgallo 1y ago
        Literally not. Elon Musk even published the infamous algorithm which he had claimed silenced and censored right wing voices. The only thing the algorithm did that was odd was that it had a special case written into it to boost Elon Musk. You can go look it up.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      I think their point was that becoming very involved in politics in a way that alienates half of the population has tarnished Musk’s brand (although, I’d personally adjust that down to more like 1/3). If the point of your whataboutism is that previously it alienated the other 1/3… that doesn’t seem to improve their odds, right? If anything they’ve now pissed off 2/3 of the population at some point or another.
  - redditor98654 1y ago
    Hmmm, thinking aloud, Oracle?
  - rs186 1y ago
    Yeah, a simple example is to just look at how many companies/universities have ChatGPT vs Grok subscriptions internally. I can imagine that many people would have a problem with subscribing to Grok, even if its performance is comparable.
- kentm 1y ago
  Mechahitler, the South African genocide debacle, explicitly checking Elons Twitter feed, “You get your news from infowars” system prompts, etc have basically made Grok not a real option for me. I do not want to use a product that is specifically being engineered to be a right wing disinformation machine. And no, generic brand safety mishaps are not the same; everyone is not doing this.
seviu 1y ago
and despite all this, I would pay 240$ a year so that Siri can reliably do what Alexa does today oh the irony
ghaff 1y ago
Alexa has pretty much zero value for me. Being able to just order something with zero shipping has a ton of value. I could drive down the street but it would still be an hour at the end of the day. Video streaming has some value but there are a lot of options.
WaltPurvis 1y ago
> Only thing it can do is set a timer, turn off a light And it can't even do that without an Internet connection. As someone who experiences annoyingly frequent outages, it never ceases to boggle my mind that I have a $200 computer, with an 8" monitor and everything, that can't even understand "set a timer for 10 minutes" on its own.
- prmoustache 1y ago
  Why did you guys bought this in the first place?
  - serial_dev 1y ago
    Fair question, playing music and timers are nice, but their AI is abysmal so you can imo not ask it to do anything else. I previously worked for a smart home company so I wanted to test out product’s integration with Alexa, so we have some at home. I’m planning to get rid of them, though, and only leave one in the kitchen.
  - WaltPurvis 1y ago
    Originally bought it for an elderly parent in assisted living; wasn't as useful as we'd hoped; repurposed it as a kitchen-timer/music-box, for which it works adequately as long as the Internet connection is up. I would not recommend anyone else buy one.

iLoveOncall 1y ago

It will be free if you have a Prime subscription (which means nobody will ever pay for it given Prime is cheaper and you get much more included). But the project is pretty much dead, it was supposed to launch in February or March and is still not anywhere close to being out.

spanishgum 1y ago

> Alexa+ costs $19.99 per month, but all Amazon Prime members will get it for free. I'm curious if non prime members make up a big market for Alexa. I rarely use my smart devices for anything beyond lights, music, and occasional Q&A, and certainly can't see myself paying 20$/month for it.

vitus 1y ago
I'm curious why anyone would pay $19.99/month for Alexa+ rather than just buy a Prime membership (which is $14.99/month). Unless of course this is going to be met with a price hike for Prime...
- wccrawford 1y ago
  That's what happened with Prime TV, and I absolutely expect it for the AI, too. And it might finally mean I cancel my Prime membership.
  - x2tyfi 1y ago
    Amazon Prime’s price hikes have a predictable cadence: * 2014: $79 to $99 * 2018: $99 to $119 * 2022: $119 to $139 We should expect a price hike from $139 to $159 in 2026, assuming the trend continues.
    - echelon 1y ago
      Meanwhile, Google Fiber has been the same price for 15 years. At least according to the billboard outside my window.
      - ls612 1y ago
        It works out for them because bandwidth gets cheaper over time but inflation eats away at that. $70 today is like $50 back in 2010 when GFiber first launched.
wenc 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

israrkhan 1y ago

I enabled Alexa+ few days ago on my devices. Everyone in our home immediately disliked the new Alexa. There were some fairly basic things that Alexa+ cannot do, and Alexa was able to do. Some fairly simple question/answering tasks, and questoins about status of an order.