Connect with us

Published

on

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.

Eventually Amazon will stagnate, there needs to be a company to take its place, says Bradley Tusk

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.

WATCH: Eventually Amazon will stagnate

Eventually Amazon will stagnate, there needs to be a company to take its place, says Bradley Tusk

Continue Reading

Technology

SoFi’s stock drops on $1.5 billion share sale announcement

Published

on

By

SoFi's stock drops on .5 billion share sale announcement

Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, speaking with CNBC at the annual Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on July 10th, 2025.

David A. Grogan | CNBC

SoFi shares fell almost 6% in extended trading Thursday after the fintech company announced a $1.5 billion stock offering.

The company, which provides online loans and other banking services, said in a press release that it will use the proceeds for “general corporate purposes, including but not limited to enhancing capital position, increasing optionality and enabling further efficiency of capital management, and funding incremental growth and business opportunities.”

The announced offering comes after SoFi’s market cap almost doubled so far in 2025. The stock price is up more than sixfold since the end of 2022.

A company’s share price often drops on a planned share sale as the offering dilutes the value of existing holders’ stakes.

In its third-quarter earnings release in late October, SoFi reported revenue growth of 38% from a year earlier to $961.6 million, while net income more than doubled to $139.4 million. The company reported cash and equivalents of $3.25 billion.

WATCH: SoFi CEO on launch of crypto trading

SoFi CEO on launch of crypto trading: Blockchain and crypto are a supercycle technology just like AI

Continue Reading

Technology

Apple announces departure of general counsel and policy chief

Published

on

By

Apple announces departure of general counsel and policy chief

Lisa Jackson, senior vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives at Apple Inc., speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple’s general counsel, Kate Adams, and its vice president for environment, policy, and social initiatives, Lisa Jackson, are retiring from the company, the iPhone maker announced on Thursday.

Jennifer Newstead, Meta’s chief legal officer, will become Apple’s new general counsel in March, and Jackson’s government affairs staff will report to her starting late next year, Apple said.

The two executives, who both reported to Apple CEO Tim Cook, are the latest members of senior leadership to exit the company. In recent weeks, Apple’s head software designer said he was leaving to join Meta, while Apple said its AI chief was retiring, along with its chief operating officer.

Adams joined Apple from Honeywell and became general counsel in 2017, and oversaw legal matters including litigation, global security, and the company’s privacy initiatives. Under Adams, Apple grappled with rising antitrust scrutiny and regulation around the world, including major lawsuits in the U.S. over the iPhone App Store’s restrictions and fees.

Jackson joined Apple in 2013, and led the company’s diversity programs as well as much of its policy work in Washington, D.C. Before that, she spent four years as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a position she was appointed to by President Barack Obama.

With her emphasis in areas like social justice and renewable energies, Jackson’s job lost relevance during the second Trump administration, which has publicly denounced diversity, equity and inclusion programs and slammed efforts to combat climate change.

Apple has faced increased tariffs from the Trump administration, and Cook has met with President Donald Trump several times to tout the company’s American manufacturing plans as part of an effort to influence policy.

Jackson was instrumental in Apple’s launch of its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. She then helped expand the company’s equity and justice efforts to other countries, including the U.K., Mexico and New Zealand, according to a report published in 2023.

“At Apple, we pledge that our resolve will not fade,” Jackson wrote in a section of that report. “We won’t delay action. We will work, each and every day, on the urgent task of advancing equity.”

Jackson also worked on Apple’s environmental image. Her job “focused on reducing greenhouse gases, protecting air and water quality, preventing exposure to toxic contamination, and expanding outreach to communities on environmental issues,” according to her bio on the company’s website. She discussed Apple’s plans to become carbon neutral at iPhone launch events.

Jackson also accompanied Cook to several official functions in Washington, including state dinners.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple Vice President Lisa Jackson arrive at the White House for a state dinner on April 10, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Tasos Katopodis | Getty Images

Newstead, who will become Apple’s top lawyer, has overseen Meta’s legal and regulatory matters pertaining to its family of apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp since 2019. A Meta spokesperson said Newstead will be staying through the end of the year and that the company is actively searching for her replacement.

Prior to Meta, Newstead served as a Trump-appointed legal advisor at the State Department during the president’s first administration in 2019. 

Before that, she was a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a general counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget, among other roles in the U.S. government.

CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this story.

WATCH: Apple AI chief steps down

Apple AI chief steps down: Here's what to know

Continue Reading

Technology

Microsoft will raise prices of commercial Office subscriptions in July

Published

on

By

Microsoft will raise prices of commercial Office subscriptions in July

A general view of the Microsoft office building is seen in Cologne, Germany, on November 18, 2025.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Microsoft said Thursday that it will increase the prices of Office productivity software subscriptions for commercial and government clients on July 1.

The company’s Office applications, which include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, have been facing increased competition in recent years from Google.

“We are continuously investing and innovating our platform for the future,” Nicole Herskowitz, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 and Copilot, wrote in a blog post. “In the last year, we released more than 1,100 features across Microsoft 365, Security, Copilot, and SharePoint.” The new features have added value to the suites, she wrote.

Price hikes for commercial Office subscriptions have been infrequent. In 2022, Microsoft raised prices of its productivity bundles for the first time since launching the original Office 365 subscriptions in 2011. Microsoft changed the name of Office 365 to Microsoft 365 in 2020. In January, Microsoft announced a price hike for consumer Office bundles.

Microsoft offers Office 365 subscriptions for commercial use that include access to its productivity applications, along with higher-priced Microsoft 365 subscriptions that also include Windows operating system updates.

Here’s a breakdown of the commercial price changes:

  • For small and medium-sized businesses, Microsoft 365 Business Basic will cost $7 per person per month, up from $6.
  • Microsoft 365 Business Standard will be available for $14, up from $12.50.
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium will continue to cost $22.
  • The entry-level Office 365 E1 offering for enterprises will still be sold for $10.
  • Office 365 E3 will jump 13% to $26 from $23.
  • The Microsoft 365 E3 package including Windows for enterprises will rise 8% to $39 from $36.
  • The full-featured Microsoft 365 E5 will increase to $60 from $57.
  • For front-line workers such as cashiers, Microsoft 365 F1 subscriptions will cost $3, up from $2.25.
  • Microsoft 365 F3 will be available for $10, up from $8.

The U.S. Defense Department and other government clients will face similar percentage price increases.

The various subscriptions all exclude access to the $30 Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on that draws on generative artificial intelligence models. Some companies have started widely rolling out Copilot, while others have held off on expanding their deployments, CNBC reported last week.

In many cases, organizations receive discounts off of list prices, but Microsoft has cut back on direct volume deals for some types of customers.

Almost 43% of Microsoft’s $77.7 billion in fiscal first-quarter revenue came from its Productivity and Businesses Processes segment, which includes Office. In October, the company said revenue from Microsoft 365 commercial cloud services jumped 17%, while seats increased 6%, mainly from products targeting small and medium-sized businesses and front-line workers.

WATCH: Microsoft sees ‘huge’ challenge and great opportunity as global economy enters a new phase, president says

Microsoft president: 'Huge' challenge and great opportunity as global economy enters a new phase

Continue Reading

Trending