Dave Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon.com Inc., speaks during the Amazon Devices and Services event at the HQ2 campus in Arlington, Virginia, on Sept. 20, 2023.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon introduced a “smarter and more conversational” version of its Alexa voice assistant that the company hopes will bolster its position in the tech industry’s artificial intelligence race.
The company hosts an annual devices bonanza, where it typically unveils a smattering of new hardware and software products. In his final keynote address at the event on Wednesday, Amazon’s devices chief Dave Limp showed off a demo of an updated Alexa that’s freshly equipped with features powered by generative AI.
Limp, a 13-year veteran of Amazon, plans to step down from his role later this year.
From an event space at its new second headquarters in northern Virginia, Amazon showed a montage in which Alexa users were seen asking an Echo smart speaker for information such as the “best dates to travel to Puerto Rico.” One man requested that Alexa tell him a story about balloons, before abruptly changing his mind and asking for a tale about Jell-O.
There were a few hiccups during Limp’s demo. At times, Alexa lagged in its response, and at a few points, Limp had to repeat his question to get an answer.
Amazon calls the new feature “Let’s chat,” and said it will be available as an “early preview” for existing Echo owners in the coming weeks.
The new Alexa will have a more humanlike voice and is able to hold more natural conversations without being prompted by a wake word. It will also learn about users with each new interaction.
Similar to ChatGPT or other generative AI applications, Alexa will be able to compose messages for users and send them on their behalf. As an example, Amazon showed an invitation that Alexa wrote to a friend, asking the person to come over for a football game.
Rohit Prasad, a senior vice president at Amazon and head scientist overseeing generative AI, gave another sports example.
“The Red Sox are my favorite team,” Prasad said. “Imagine if they won, then Alexa would respond in a joyful voice. If they lost, it will be empathetic to me.”
Amazon previewed ways it’s using AI to better operate smart homes. With upcoming Alexa updates, users will be able to make more conversational requests, like asking the voice assistant to make their lights “look spooky” or say “Alexa, there’s a mess in here,” prompting a robot vacuum to switch on and suck up crumbs.
Limp employed the phrase “AI hallucinations,” a term that describes mistakes made by AI models, to explain how Alexa would do better.
“It would be incredibly frustrating if it hallucinated and turned on the wrong light over and over again,” Limp said, adding that Amazon’s AI models are fine-tuned to be able to work with various smart home applications, so that when “you ask it to turn on the living room light, it’s able to execute that correctly.”
Amazon also debuted new hardware, including an updated Echo Show 8 smart speaker. The device uses computer vision to adjust its display based on where the user is standing in a room. If they’re farther away, it will show fewer items on screen, but as they move closer, it will show more detailed information. Amazon said the device costs $150 and will ship in October.
It also unveiled a $120 Fire TV sound bar that’s available starting Wednesday, and two new Fire TV Sticks that the company says are faster and feature upgraded processors.
Amazon showed a new feature coming to the Alexa App and Echo Hubs, called Map View, which is essentially a digital floor plan of a user’s home. The feature is designed to make it simpler for users to manage their smart home devices. It could also provide a wealth of valuable data for Amazon to understand how people organize their smart home. Amazon says it’s opt-in only, and users select which rooms they want to add to their floor plan. They’re able to delete the data at any time.
Samsung launched the Galaxy S25 Edge, a thinner version of its flagship smartphone.
Arjun Kharpal | CNBC
Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a thin version of its flagship smartphone in an unusually timed launch as it looks to maintain momentum in its mobile divison against an uncertain consumer backdrop and U.S. tariff policy.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge is just 5.8 millimeters thin and weighs 163 grams, making it one of the thinnest smartphones on the market.
Samsung said the device starts at $1,099 and goes on sale on May 30.
The launch comes just under four months after Samsung staged its annual flagship phone launch for the S25 series. It is unusual for Samsung to launch a new high-end device this soon after the January event with the normal timeline generally being the middle of the year for the unveiling of its latest foldable phones.
The move highlights the South Korean tech giant’s desire to capitalize on the success of the S25 range as it faces rising competition from Chinese players and an uncertain macroeconomic environment.
Samsung reported last month that it saw a jump in revenue and profit in the first quarter of the year at its mobile division thanks to strong sales of its S25 series.
However, Daniel Araujo, vice president at Samsung’s mobile division, warned on an earnings call last month that smartphone demand is expected to decrease in the second quarter due to “seasonality trends” and forecasts could be “adjusted” further due to global tariff policy.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs took effect in April though they were paused shortly after. The White House exempted certain tech products such as smartphones and chips, providing some reprieve for companies like Samsung and Apple. The U.S. and China meanwhile agreed on Monday to pause most of their tariffs on each party.
Araujo said that the S25 Edge could help “sustain flagship-centric sales,” underscoring why Samsung has decided to launch the phone now.
Apple reportedly working on thin iPhone
Thinner phones have become an obsession with smartphone makers who are hoping these devices will appeal to people who want the flagship experience without the size of a traditional device. Samsung’s S25 Edge has a 6.7-inch display, the same as the Galaxy S25+, but it is thinner and lighter.
The Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge on display during a briefing at the Samsung KX store in London, U.K.
“For the second half of 2025 ‘thin is most definitely in’,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told CNBC.
“Samsung is first out the gate with a slim design, but Apple is expected to follow in September, and the burgeoning Chinese brands such as Honor and Xiaomi probably won’t be far behind.”
Samsung may be trying to get ahead of its closest rival Apple, which is gearing up to launch a thin version of its flagship device dubbed the iPhone 17 Air, according to a Bloomberg report this year.
“It is hard to believe this is not a pre-emptive strike following the widespread speculation that Apple will have a thin iPhone in its next line-up,” Wood added.
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025.
Gerry Miller | CNBC
Coinbase is joining the S&P 500, replacing Discover Financial Services in the benchmark index, according to a release on Monday. Shares of the crypto exchange jumped 8% in extended trading.
The change will take effect before trading on May 19. Discover is in the process of being acquired by Capital One Financial.
Since going public through a direct listing in 2021, Coinbase has become a bigger part of the U.S. financial system, with bitcoin soaring in value and large institutions gaining regulatory approval to create spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Bitcoin spiked last week, topping $100,000 and nearing its record price reached in January.
However, Coinbase has been a particularly volatile stock and is trading well below its peak from late 2021. The shares closed on Monday at $207.22, giving the company a market cap of $53 billion. At its high, the stock traded at over $357.
Stocks added to the S&P 500 often rise in value because funds that track the S&P 500 will add it to their portfolios.
The index, which is heavily weighted towards tech because of the massive market caps of the industry’s heavyweights, continues to add companies from across the sector. In September, Dell and defense software provider Palantir were added to the S&P 500, following artificial intelligence server maker Super Micro Computer and security software vendor CrowdStrike earlier last year.
To join the S&P 500, a company must have reported a profit in its latest quarter and have cumulative profit over the four most recent quarters.
Coinbase last week reported net income of $65.6 million, or 24 cents a share, down from $1.18 billion, or $4.40 a share a year earlier, after accounting for the fair value of its crypto investments. Revenue rose 24% to $2.03 billion from $1.64 billion a year ago.
Also last week, Coinbase announced plans to buy Dubai-based Deribit, a major crypto derivatives exchange for $2.9 billion. The deal, which is the largest in the crypto industry to date, will help Coinbase broaden its footprint outside the U.S.
Coinbase shares are down 17% this year, underperforming bitcoin, which is now up about 10% over that stretch.
Perplexity AI is in late-stage talks to raise $500 million at a $14 billion valuation, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC Monday.
Accel, the Palo Alto-based venture capital firm, will lead the round, according to the source, who spoke anonymously because the round is not yet finalized. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the late-stage numbers.
The funding is on the lower end of Perplexity’s planned raise, which CNBC reported in March. During those early-stage talks, Perplexity was looking to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in funding at an $18 billion post-money valuation, per a source familiar.
Perplexity has just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, the source told CNBC in March.
Perplexity has been in the middle of the generative AI boom that began in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and it’s betting big on its upcoming AI agent web browser, called Comet. But Perplexity faces increasing competition in the AI search market.
In March, Anthropic launched its web search product, allowing its chatbot Claude to display real-time search results to a subset of users.
Last fall, OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positioned it to better compete with Perplexity, as well as leading search engines such as Google and Microsoft‘s Bing.
Google has released AI Overviews within its search product as well, though it sparked controversy over high-profile errors soon after its release.