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Amazon ( AMZN ) struggles to show Alexa+ user engagement

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Alexa+ performance can be slow to respond

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Company has plowed billions into developing Alexa since

2014

By Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO, May 16 (Reuters) - Alexa, where are your

users?

More than six weeks after Amazon.com ( AMZN ) began rolling out

the new Alexa+ generative artificial-intelligence-powered voice

assistant to hundreds of thousands of people, there is scant

evidence it is in regular customers' hands.

The new service was meant to be a triumph for Amazon ( AMZN ) after

several delays in revamping Alexa in the age of AI chatbots like

ChatGPT. The company signaled its significance by bringing CEO

Andy Jassy to a February press event in New York where it

showcased Alexa+'s capabilities and promised customers would

start getting invite access in late March.

"There seems to be no one who actually has it," said Avi

Greengart, lead analyst at Techsponential, who attended the

Alexa+ announcement event. "This fits a pattern of a lot of

companies announcing services or products when they are awfully

close to being ready, but not quite - that last mile is a lot

farther away than they anticipated," he said.

In an ultimately unsuccessful effort to locate real-world

users of Alexa+, Reuters searched dozens of news sites, YouTube,

TikTok, X, BlueSky and Meta's Instagram and Facebook, as well as

Amazon's ( AMZN ) Twitch and reviews of Echo voice-assistant devices on

Amazon.com ( AMZN ). Two who posted on Reddit claimed to have used the

service, but did not provide Reuters with hard evidence and

their identities could not be corroborated.

"Hundreds of thousands of customers now have access to

Alexa+ - of course, some are employees and their families, but

the overwhelming majority are customers that requested early

access," said an Amazon ( AMZN ) spokesperson. That is up from the

approximately 100,000 users that Amazon ( AMZN ) reported on May 1.

Amazon ( AMZN ) did not say why there were no verifiable public

reviews or reactions to the new service and declined to make

available for an interview any active Alexa+ users. The company

does not require nondisclosure agreements in exchange for Alexa+

access, a spokesperson said.

The rollout of Amazon AI-assisted Alexa+ is proceeding

slowly and the service has struggled with speed in answering

some questions or prompts, three sources familiar with the

matter told Reuters. It also occasionally generates inaccurate

or fabricated information, like other AI models, and is

expensive to operate, the people said.

Accessed mainly through Amazon ( AMZN ) televisions and Echo devices,

Alexa can set timers, answer search queries and tell the weather

if a user requests it out loud. While Apple's ( AAPL ) Siri

voice assistant preceded the original Alexa by three years, it

was the Amazon ( AMZN ) service that supercharged the acceptance of voice

assistants.

The overhaul resulting in the generative AI-infused Alexa+

is meant to revitalize the decade-old service and help Amazon ( AMZN )

compete with chatbots from OpenAI, Meta and others.

Amazon ( AMZN ) has plowed billions into developing Alexa since it was

introduced in 2014, but it has been unprofitable and the vision

of customers using it for voice-shopping never materialized.

Technology companies typically rely on a mix of analysts,

product reviewers, social media influencers and reporters to

help get the word out about their newest devices or services.

Apple ( AAPL ), considered a master of marketing, gives launch-event

attendees limited access to its iPhones or laptops for initial

reviews, followed shortly by lengthier scrutiny within days or

weeks of announcement. Amazon ( AMZN ) itself gave reviewers time to test

out its new color Kindle device at an event in October before

making it available to buy just two weeks later.

In September 2023, Amazon ( AMZN ) showed off a prior iteration of the

generative AI-infused Alexa and said customers would be getting

an "early preview" of it within weeks. It never came.

Alexa+ will be able to respond to multiple prompts in

sequence and even act as an "agent" on behalf of users by taking

actions for them without their direct involvement. That

contrasts with the current iteration, which generally handles

only a single request at a time.

During Amazon's ( AMZN ) first-quarter earnings call two weeks ago, Jassy

said more than 100,000 people were already using the new voice

service and that "people are really liking Alexa+ thus far."

Americus Reed, a marketing professor at the University of

Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said that by leaving a large gap

between product launch and general availability, Amazon ( AMZN ) was

failing to build anticipation for Alexa+. "Just lean on your

curated YouTube or TikTok advocates and tell them what to talk

about," he said. "Instead, this makes it look like they are

worried about something."

Techsponential's Greengart said the February Alexa event

could be seen as an early warning sign because attendees were

not allowed to try the service themselves, instead being

shuffled into breakout sessions where product managers ran

through well-rehearsed routines and answered limited questions.

Reuters, which attended the event, was also unable to try out

the service.

By contrast, at Amazon's ( AMZN ) 2014 launch for its Fire Phone,

users could hold the device and try its features. The original

Echo device, running the Alexa service, became available weeks

after its announcement in November 2014 and users went public

with their reactions that December.

The upgraded Alexa is designed to allow users to seek

shopping advice such as vacation outfits and to receive

aggregated news stories. As shown, it is meant to carry out more

complicated requests, such as ordering food for delivery while

also remembering a user's dietary preferences.

To demonstrate Alexa+'s broad use, Amazon ( AMZN ) pointed to an April

TechRadar story that cited an anonymous Reddit post from a user

claiming to have tested the service.

The Reddit post has since been deleted.