Amazon believes its virtual assistant Alexa needs to be much more compelling. More like a real person. Therefore, it will now be powered by an artificial intelligence language model that will make its responses closer to those of a real person. Not only that. Also, the cadence of your voice will no longer resemble that of a robot and will be closer to that of a human being. In addition, human-like voice conversations can now be held with more than 25 unique characters, allowing, for example, to ask Albert Einstein for a recipe or a travel recommendation from Socrates. The characters will remember your conversations and adapt to the user’s preferences.
The introduction of AI in the virtual assistant will allow, according to Amazon, “much more natural and fluid conversations with Alexa, and cover a wide range of topics, for example, going into depth about last night’s baseball game or a new artist before Ask Alexa to play your music.” The company claims that the system will be able to process multiple requests and deduce what a statement means. Instead of asking him to turn off the lights in a room, you can tell him that there is too much light in it, or ask him to turn off one area and keep another.
Another feature that Alexa will have on its devices with a camera, such as the Echo Show speakers with screen, is Eye Gaze (gaze) that allows users to only have to look at their tablet to activate preset actions, such as playing music and programs, monitor the home environment, and communicate with family and friends.
Home automation control is one of Amazon’s obsessions, which at this event has presented a wall tablet specifically dedicated to it. The new Echo Hub is an Alexa-connected control panel that can manage up to Zigbee, Sidewalk, Thread, Bluetooth and Matter standards home devices, and can be used with more than 140,000 cameras. It consists of an eight-inch touch screen with a customizable control panel that allows you to group the devices you have available. Echo Hub has infrared technology to detect when a person is nearby to open your home screen.
Amazon has also presented its new Echo Show 8 assistant, with edge-to-edge glass, an improved processor and a new system that makes Alexa process common requests locally to obtain 40% faster responses to what is asked of it. It has a 13 megapixel camera and an improved audio channel that minimizes background noise throughout the house. It has a function that adjusts the content of the screen according to the user’s proximity to the device, making it more detailed or simpler depending on the distance.
Among the avalanche of new hardware from Amazon stands out the new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which is the first streaming media player with an ambient image system for when not in use that allows the TV screen to play a still image, even created in an instant using generative AI. The device supports Dolby Vision high dynamic range, HDR, HDR10 and Dolby Atmos surround audio systems.
The internet multinational has also presented a new version of its Ring Stick Up Cam home security camera to which it has added radar sensors. The camera is capable of measuring the distance of an object in its field of view. Another of the great novelties is the update of its line of eero wifi systems. The new eero Max 7 supports the new Wi-Fi 7 multi-link standard, with wireless speeds up to 4.3 Gbps.
