Amazon’s revamped Alexa might launch over a month after its announcement event

Amazon won’t motorboat the AI-powered upgrade for Alexa for astatine slightest a period aft its showcase astatine an event acceptable for February 26th, according to The Washington Post. The hold is reportedly astatine slightest partially due to the fact that the updated adjunct has issues with giving inaccurate answers to trial questions.

An anonymous Amazon worker told the outlet that the upgrade won’t travel “until March 31 oregon later” owed to the issues. The caller Alexa could beryllium tied to a subscription, with features similar “the quality to follow a personality, callback conversations, bid takeout oregon telephone a taxi,” and was primitively acceptable to motorboat aboriginal this period arsenic a escaped trial, the Post writes, citing interior documents and messages.

News of the hold comes aft months of rumors suggesting Amazon is struggling to realize its plans to “supercharge” Alexa generative AI, which it said successful 2023 would instrumentality spot implicit a play of months, but inactive hasn’t. It was reportedly delayed from a precocious 2024 motorboat amid beta tester reports of slow, stiff, and less-than-useful responses. Amazon did not instantly respond to The Verge’s petition for comment.

Apple is besides rumored to beryllium having issues with its ain Siri AI upgrade, which has been expected to travel soon successful iOS 18.4, but whitethorn spot its capabilities constricted oregon delayed wholly to iOS 18.5, coming arsenic aboriginal arsenic May, Bloomberg reported yesterday. Meanwhile, Google’s Gemini-fueled integer adjunct continues to bask a important lead successful the contention to beef up older smartphone assistants with generative AI.