Highlights:

  • The upcoming subscription-based Alexa upgrade is expected to leverage an algorithm from the Amazon Titan series of large language models.
  • Amazon is considering charging for the enhanced version of its AI assistant to cover the expenses associated with the advanced large language model (LLM).

Amazon.com Inc. engineers are reportedly developing a more advanced version of Alexa, which is anticipated to be accessible through a paid subscription.

Sources familiar with the subscription-based Alexa upgrade told a famous business news agency that the service is expected to launch later this year. Sources familiar with the project said to a renowned business news agency that the service is expected to launch later this year.
The iPhone maker and Amazon reportedly plan to incorporate new generative AI features in their upcoming product updates.

The upcoming subscription-based Alexa upgrade is expected to leverage an algorithm from the Amazon Titan series of large language models. The Titan series comprises three large language models with varying capabilities and pricing introduced last year by Amazon’s cloud unit.

The most advanced Titan model, Amazon Titan Text Premier, can process prompts that include up to 32,000 tokens of information. A token represents a unit of data comprising a few letters or numbers. The model features RAG (retrieval-augmented generation), enabling it to integrate information from external applications into its prompt responses.

Conversely, the price range is Amazon Titan Text Lite. Geared towards relatively simple text processing tasks, the model, positioned as the entry-level offering in the Titan series, supports prompts with up to 4,000 tokens. Whether Amazon intends to power the next version of Alexa with an existing Titan model or with a yet-unannounced addition to the series remains uncertain.

The recent report indicates that the generative AI model that underpins Alexa costs two cents per query. In comparison, producing 1,000 output tokens with the entry-level Titan Text Lite model costs Amazon Web Services Inc. customers 100 times less. This indicates that the upgraded version of Alexa likely integrates a substantially more sophisticated architecture within its large language model (LLM).

Amazon is considering charging for the enhanced version of its AI assistant to cover the expenses associated with the advanced large language model (LLM). One source familiar with the matter told CNBC that Amazon is contemplating a monthly fee of USD 20, aligning with the pricing strategy of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus. Another source hinted that the Alexa subscription could be priced at a “single-digit dollar amount.”

The team responsible for developing the AI assistant has reportedly undergone a “massive reorganization” as part of Amazon’s efforts to streamline its business operations.
Many team members, consisting of thousands of employees, are believed to have shifted their focus to developing artificial general intelligence. This term refers to a hypothetical future type of AI capable of performing a wide range of tasks with human-like accuracy.