Amazon on Tuesday unveiled four new smart speakers and voice-activated displays that are revamped with Alexa+, its personal assistant that’s powered by generative artificial intelligence.

The company debuted the Echo Dot Max, a revamped version of its compact smart speaker, which costs $99.99. Amazon also unveiled a new Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, priced at $179.99 and $219.99, respectively.

There’s also a new version of the Echo Studio, a larger, higher-end model with a more powerful speaker, priced at $219.99.

All the devices are available for preorder on Tuesday, and users will get Alexa+ early access “out of the box,” Amazon said. The Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio ship Oct. 29, while the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 ship Nov. 12.

The devices were launched at Amazon’s fall hardware bonanza, held in New York. They’re the first batch of revamped products under the leadership of Panos Panay, a former Microsoft hardware leader who joined Amazon in 2023.

It’s also the first set of Amazon hardware to integrate the company’s long-awaited Alexa+, which debuted in February and has slowly rolled out in early access for some users.

“These are the most powerful Echo devices we have ever created,” Panay said on stage at the event. “Custom silicon, advanced sensors, our best microphones and sound, noise cancellation, understanding the user, faster than anything we’ve ever delivered before. They’re also beautifully designed to fade into the background.”

Alongside a revamped look, Amazon added new AZ3 and AZ3 Pro chips for edge processing to the devices, which are faster, more powerful and have “AI built right in,” said Daniel Rausch, the head of Amazon’s Alexa and Echo businesses.

The devices also feature a so-called Omnisense platform that gives Alexa “better contextual awareness,” Rausch said. It allows the Echo Show to be able to recognize users and serve up personalized insights, like an analysis of how they slept last night or alert users if they left their front door unlocked after midnight.

Amazon faces growing pressure to update its hardware and software for the generative AI age following the success of rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. Meta also has its Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which use its Llama large language model to answer spoken questions from the user.

Amazon is also looking beyond Alexa or Echo smart speakers for opportunities in device growth.

The company in July confirmed it’s acquiring AI wearables startup Bee, which makes a wristband that can record and transcribe conversations.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek will step down from his position and move to the role of executive chairman, the company said Tuesday.

Spotify shares dipped around 4% following the announcement.

Ek, who co-founded the streaming platform in 2006, will be replaced by current co-presidents and longtime executives Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström as co-CEOs, the company said in a release. The transition will happen Jan. 1, 2026.

“Over the last few years, I’ve turned over a large part of the day-to-day management and strategic direction of Spotify to Alex and Gustav–who have shaped the company from our earliest days and are now more than ready to guide our next phase,” Ek said in a release. “This change simply matches titles to how we already operate.”

Ek, who has been a member of the board since 2008, said his new role will focus on steering the company’s long-term strategy and providing support to its senior team.

“It’s been an honor of a lifetime for me to be able to lead Spotify for close to 20 years,” Ek said in an X post.

In 2023, Jamie Siminoff called up Amazon‘s former devices boss, Dave Limp, to say he was stepping down from leading the video doorbell company he sold to the e-commerce giant for $839 million in 2018.

Siminoff, who started Ring in 2013, said Limp and Amazon offered him the opportunity to work elsewhere at the company, but he declined.

“I said, ‘I think I have to leave,'” Siminoff recalled in an interview on Monday. “I don’t think I can be half in. I’m either all in or I’m all out.”

He wasn’t gone for long.

In April, Siminoff announced his return to Ring, replacing Liz Hamren, a former Microsoft and Discord executive whom Amazon had hired to succeed him. Now that he’s back at the helm, Siminoff says he’s restoring Ring’s original mission, to “make neighborhoods safer.”

And now his team has even more artificial intelligence technology at its disposal to supercharge those efforts.

Siminoff took the stage Tuesday at Amazon’s annual hardware event in New York to debut new Ring cameras, along with a feature called Search Party that uses AI to identify potential matches in camera footage. It’s aimed at “reuniting lost dogs” with their families, but Siminoff said there could be other applications in the future.

During Hamren’s two-year tenure, Ring moved to adopt a softer, more whimsical image marked by silly videos of backyard animal encounters and family-friendly hijinks. It also removed a tool widely criticized by civil liberties and privacy advocates that let police request doorbell footage from users in its neighborhood watch app.

Siminoff, 48, said Ring’s cameras have many uses, including keeping an eye on pets and loved ones. Siminoff is based in Los Angeles and has two dogs, a Belgian Malinois and a Chihuahua.

“I’m focused on: How can I get the highest density of camera coverage in a neighborhood matched with AI to make neighborhoods safer?” he said. “It’s not just hard crime.”

Ring is part of Amazon’s vast devices and services division, which is overseen by Panos Panay, a former Microsoft hardware leader who joined the company in 2023. Beyond Ring, the unit spans Amazon’s Zoox robotaxis, Kindle e-readers, Echo devices and Kuiper, the company’s internet satellite service.

Ring’s security cameras typically start at $50 and range in price depending on coverage. Users can also pay up to $20 a month for its subscription service that lets them continuously record and access more cloud storage, among other features.

Amazon claimed a Los Angeles Police Department pilot program in 2015 found that Ring’s doorbells reduced burglaries in neighborhoods “by as much as 55%,” according to a 2018 release. But reports from several outlets have disputed whether Ring cameras lead to a decrease in crime.

Privacy advocates have expressed concern that the company’s cameras and accompanying Neighbors app have heightened the risk of racial profiling and turned residents into informants, with few guardrails around how law enforcement can use the material.

Siminoff, who said he’s “pro public safety” and “backs the blue,” said he felt some of the coverage of Ring’s video-request feature for police was unfair or inaccurate.

“That’s the stuff that irks me,” Siminoff said, referring to the claim that Ring gives camera access to police.

“We allow them to request footage from people in a super privacy centric, anonymous way that keeps their privacy. But that’s not a good headline,” he added.

A few weeks after Siminoff’s return, Ring reintroduced its community request tool through a partnership with Axon Enterprise, the maker of Tasers and police body cameras. Police can solicit footage from Ring cameras through Axon’s online evidence management system, and users can choose whether or not to share it.

“I don’t think we should be working directly with police,” Siminoff said. “It’s not the business we’re in in any way.”

Siminoff said Ring, which is profitable, is exploring other potential growth areas, such as security solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses.

Ring isn’t currently exploring offering up its tech to a more homegrown customer — its sprawling parent company. At least when it comes to sticking its cameras in Amazon delivery vans or warehouses.

Siminoff has considered it, but “then you realize it’s just a distraction,” he said. “Amazon’s so big you could probably do something for everything.”

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