Amazon Updates Alexa
Last week, Amazon held its annual devices and services event last week announcing new Echo devices and a retooled, more powerful Alexa voice assistant. Powered by LLMs, the new Alexa+ can process visual information using a device’s camera, have more natural conversations and offer deeper integrations into apps like calendars. Similar to Google’s Notebook LM application, Alexa+ also offers ‘dense document processing’ which will allow the agent to summarize and outline legal documents, PDFs, and other written pieces.
The Circana Take:
- With a growing field of AI agents and chatbots, Alexa+ faces many competitors offering paid and free services. Amazon’s strength in this growing field is its high installed base of Amazon Prime users (who will receive this service for free) and tens of millions of Alexa and Echo-enabled devices in consumer households.
- Amazon will have to work to convert early users of Gemini AI and Chat-GPT to their platform- even as those services scale quickly with more advanced models and capabilities.
New Ring Camera Announced
Last month, Ring announced the Ring Outdoor Cam Plus, a $100 security camera. According to the company, the Outdoor Cam Plus performs well in low-light situations (despite having 2K resolution). The camera offers Live View and Two-Way Talk without needing a monthly subscription, however smart alerts for people or packages are only available for a monthly fee. The camera can be used in-doors and outdoors and has battery, plug-in, and solar power options.
The Circana Take:
- Like many camera manufacturers, Ring is expanding its lower cost product options in an effort to attract more users and potential subscribers to its monthly service.
- At $100, the Outdoor Cam Plus is a strong product for a low price and will challenge other established brands for market share. With Alexa+ just announced, the company can tout advanced AI integration into its platform to drive new subscriptions.