Alexa+ at Amazon's 2025 event: Greetings, Vega and more
Before it began slowly trickling out Alexa+ to users at the start of February, Amazon promised a smarter, more conversational assistant. It turned out the reality was more complicated, and, more than anything, Alexa+ in its current state is a showcase of the limitations of generative AI. Of course, that's not stopping from iterating on the digital assistant. During its "Devices and Services" event on Tuesday, Amazon announced a host of Alexa+ updates, with many of them enabling new integrations alongside the company's brand new devices.
One of those new features is Alexa+ Greetings, which will roll out to Ring's new 2K and 4K devices this summer. With the help of Ring's image recognition technology, Alexa+ will be able to make decisions about how to handle different visitors to your home. If it sees one of your friends or family members, it will know to greet them. When it comes to strangers, the digital assistant will ask questions of them to determine the purpose of their visit. It can also manage deliveries by providing instructions to couriers about where to leave a package.
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Alexa+ is also built directly into Vega, Amazon's new smart TV operating system. The integration will translate into more personalized recommendations, and the ability for Alexa+ to show you content related to your questions. For example, you can use the assistant to find a specific scene in a movie. In the demo Amazon showed, Vice President of Fire TV Aidan Marcuss instructed Alexa to "find the scene where Hatteburg hits a home run," and the assistant pulled up the appropriate spot in the film Moneyball. This functionality is available while watching live sports too, meaning you can ask the assistant for updates on your favorite teams and more.
Developing...This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/alexa-at-amazons-2025-event-greetings-and-more-143211291.html?src=rss