With Alexa+, Amazon makes an intriguing play in the consumer agent space

Amazon shared an impressive vision of an “agentic” future on Wednesday — one in which the company’s improved Alexa, Alexa+, handles countless mundane tasks, from booking restaurants to finding appliance repairmen. If Amazon can deliver, it could be the first out to the gate with a comprehensive, consumer-focused agent tool. The company hopes to marry a more natural, expressive Alexa — one powered by generative AI models — with the ability to tap into first- and third-party apps, services, and platforms in a fully autonomous, intelligent way. “We believe that the future is full of agents — we have believed this for some time,” Amazon Alexa and Echo VP Daniel Rausch said in a keynote Wednesday. “There will be many AI agents out there doing things for customers, many of them will have specialized skills … And we’ve also always believed that in a world full of AI, these agents should interact with each other. They should interoperate seamlessly for customers.” That’d be a big win for a ... Read full article.