Amazon plans to give Alexa an AI overhaul — and a monthly subscription price
Amazon is upgrading its decade-old Alexa voice assistant with generative artificial intelligence and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset the cost of the technology, according to people with knowledge of Amazon’s plans.
The Seattle-based tech and retail giant will launch a more conversational version of Alexa later this year, potentially positioning it to better compete with new generative AI-powered chatbots from companies including Google and OpenAI, according to two sources familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. Amazon’s subscription for Alexa will not be included in the $139-per-year Prime offering, and Amazon has not yet nailed down the price point, one source said.
Amazon declined to comment on its plans for Alexa.
While Amazon wowed consumers with Alexa’s voice-driven tasks in 2014, its capabilities could seem old-fashioned amid recent leaps in artificial intelligence. Last week, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, with the capability for two-way conversations that can go significantly deeper than Alexa. For example, it can translate conversations into different languages in real time. Google launched a similar generative-AI-powered voice feature for Gemini.
Some interpreted last week’s announcements as a threat to Alexa and Siri, Apple‘s voice assistant feature for iPhones. NYU professor Scott Galloway called the updates the “Alexa and Siri killers” on his recent podcast. Many people use Alexa and Siri for basic tasks, such as setting timers or alarms and announcing the weather.
The development of new AI chatbots in recent months has increased the pressure internally on a division that was once seen as a darling of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to the sources — but has been subject to strict profit imperatives since his departure.
Three former employees pointed to Bezos’ early obsession with Alexa, describing it as his passion project. Attention from Bezos resulted in more dollars and less pressure to make a return on those funds immediately.
That changed when Andy Jassy took over as CEO in 2021, according to three sources. Jassy was charged with rightsizing Amazon’s business during the pandemic, and Alexa became less of a priority internally, they said. Jassy has been privately underwhelmed with what modern-day Alexa is capable of, according to one person. The Alexa team worried they had invented an expensive alarm clock, weather machine and way to play Spotify music, one source said.
For instance, Jassy, an avid sports fan, asked the voice assistant the live score of a recent game, according to a person in the room, and was openly frustrated that Alexa didn’t know an answer that was so easy to find online.
When reached for comment, Amazon pointed to the company’s annual shareholder letter released last month. In it, Jassy mentioned that the company was building a “substantial number of GenAI applications across every Amazon consumer business,” adding that that included “an even more intelligent and capable Alexa.”
The team is now tasked with turning Alexa into a relevant device that holds up amid the new AI competition, and one that justifies the resources and headcount Amazon has dedicated to it. It has undergone a massive reorganization, with much of the team shifting to the artificial general intelligence, or AGI, team, according to three sources. Others pointed to bloat within Alexa, a team of thousands of employees.
As of 2023, Amazon said it had sold more than 500 million Alexa-enabled devices, giving the company a foothold with consumers.
Alexa, were you too early?
Apple, Amazon and Google were early movers with their voice assistants, which did employ AI. But the current wave of advanced generative AI enables much more creative, human-sounding interactions. Apple is expected to unveil a more conversational Siri at its annual developers conference in June, according to The New York Times.
Those who worked on the Alexa team describe it as a great idea that may have been too early, and that it’s going to be hard to turn the ship around.
There’s also the challenge of finding AI engineering talent, as OpenAI, Microsoft and Google recruit from the same pool of academics and tech talent. Plus, generative AI workloads are expensive thanks to the hardware and computing power required. One source estimated the cost of using generative AI in Alexa at 2 cents per query, and said a $20 price point was floated internally. Another suggested it would need to be in a single-digit dollar amount, which would undercut other subscription offerings. OpenAI’s ChatGPT charges $20 per month for its advanced models.
Still, they point to Alexa’s installed user base, with devices in hundreds of millions of homes, as an opportunity. Those who worked on Alexa say the fact that it’s already in people’s living rooms and kitchens makes the stakes higher, and mistakes more costly if Alexa doesn’t understand a command or provides unreliable information.
Amazon has been battling a perception that it’s behind in artificial intelligence. While it offers multiple AI models on Amazon Web Services, it does not have a leading large language model to unseat OpenAI, Google or Meta. Amazon spent $2.75 billion backing AI startup Anthropic, its largest venture investment in the company’s three-decade history. Google also has an Anthropic investment and partnership.
Amazon will use its own large language model, Titan, in the Alexa upgrade, according to a source.
Bezos is among those who have voiced concern that Amazon is behind in AI, according to two sources familiar with him. Bezos is still “very involved” in Amazon’s AI efforts, CNBC reported last week, and has been sending Amazon executives emails wondering why certain AI startups are picking other cloud providers over AWS.
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 09, 2025 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Apple‘s annual developer conference on Monday lacked the splashy announcement that fans are used to seeing at WWDC. There was nothing like the Vision Pro reveal from 2023 or the Apple Intelligence announcement last year.
But there was an important software update that, later this year, will change the way all of Apple’s major devices, from iPhones and Mac laptops to Vision Pro virtual reality headsets, will look. It’s a new design language that runs across all of Apple’s operating systems. The company is calling it Liquid Glass.
For Apple, it’s the first significant redesign of its iPhone operating system since 2013, when the company announced iOS7. Apple says the lock screen will look like it’s made out of glass. Buttons will turn into little glass pills, fluidly sliding over glass rails. And there are new animations, including when answering a phone call.
The unveiling underwhelmed Wall Street, which sent the stock down 1.2% on the day. Investors are pressuring Apple to make big changes to its artificial intelligence strategy, pushing it to match the frontier models capabilities of rivals such as Google and OpenAI.
“Many of the AI features announced were more incremental in our view, and already available through competitor applications,” UBS analyst David Vogt wrote in a note on Monday. He has the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock.
Last year, Apple announced Apple Intelligence, its response to ChatGPT, complete with a demo of a “more personal” Siri that could intelligently parse through emails and messages to figure out the best time to make a restaurant reservation. Apple delayed the feature in March, had to pull ads that depicted it, and provided no update on timing on Monday.
“This work needed more time to meet our high quality bar,” Apple software chief Craig Federighi said on Monday. He restated the company’s “the coming year” timeline.
Liquid glass design
Apple’s focus at WWDC was on providing new features and animations across its software that are “delightful,” in CEO Tim Cook’s words.
The new design language is heavy on transparent buttons, sliders, and other interaction elements. Users will be able to spot it as soon as they upgrade their phones to the new iOS, which will be available for beta testing this summer.
Apple announces liquid glass during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 9, 2025 in Cupertino, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Instead of hard, sharp corners in rectangular windows, Apple’s new design language has curved corners that match the device.
One reason Apple gave for rolling out the update now is that its computers and chips have become powerful enough to handle it. Apple said that its new look was directly inspired by the look of VisionOS, the company’s software for Vision Pro.
“Apple Silicon has become dramatically more powerful — enabling software, materials and experiences we once could only dream of,” Federighi said in a recorded video.
As with many Apple announcements, reactions are all over the map. Some people on social media were excited while others compared the update to the look of Windows Vista, which was released in 2007.
While Apple didn’t make many significant changes to the Siri experience, the company did introduce a few significant improvements and changes to its AI capabilities.
Apple also expanded its integration with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, integrating its image generation capabilities into an app that previously only used Apple’s technology.
When a user takes a screenshot on an iPhone, a new button will send the image to ChatGPT, which can summarize blocks of text in the image, or even decipher what’s happening.
One major improvement Apple is rolling out is in language translation.
During a phone call between two people who don’t speak the same language, the phone app can translate a sentence after it’s spoken and use an AI-generated voice to speak to the other party in the their language. Apple says the feature uses AI processed on the iPhone and doesn’t require a connection to a server.
New numbers
In some corners of the Apple fan universe, the most notable announcement on Monday may involve a simple number.
Since 2007, Apple had introduced a new version of its iOS every year. By 2024, Apple was on iOS 18. It’s a meaningful number for users who want to know if they have the latest Apple features, and some 82% of users with recent iPhones had upgraded to iOS 18 within a year.
Now, Apple is naming its operating systems for the iPhone and other devices after the year that they’ll be available for use by most consumers. In this case, it’s 2026.
In September, users will upgrade to iOS 26. Apple also has iPadOS 26, WatchOS 26, tvOS 26 and Vision OS 26.
The name change will simplify how to refer to the various operating systems, which had gotten confusing given that each device was on a different generation. It also keeps the pressure on Apple to keep rolling out an update every year, or else the number will make it clear that its software is outdated.
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