There has been talk for a while that Amazon will add generated AI and conversational skills to Alexa, but these rumors don't seem to have gone away. A new CNBC report claims that Amazon will unveil a "soup-up" version of the voice assistant later this year, but must pay if you want access

So, sources claim that this subscription is not part of an Amazon Prime subscription. That's why, unlike services like Prime Video and Amazon Music bundled with the Prime plan, everyone may have to pay an additional fee for Alexa2.0. However, it is claimed that the price of this subscription has not yet been finalized.

Clearly the focus here is to make sure Amazon can position itself in a product that will "hold up in the new AI competition" — perhaps ChatGPT, Google Gemini,

Part of that pressure comes from CEO Andrew Jassy, who is reportedly "overwhelmed" by Alexa's current capabilities. Apparently the current Alexa development team is also concerned that Alexa could be seen as "an expensive alarm clock, a weather machine and a way to play Spotify music." Sure, this is exactly how I use Alexa, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It has been claimed that Amazon's new goal is to create artificial general intelligence, but it is a very sci-fi concept and considered unlikely to happen soon.

The first goal is to use Amazon's Titan large language model to create a chatbot with generating AI capabilities. This is the first time Titan has been made available to non-business users, and could give Alexa a set of new features in the process.

Everything sounds fine, even if it feels like Amazon is catching up. Whether anyone would actually be willing to pay for this new generation AI injection Alexa is a completely different matter. Premium subscriptions are not new in the chatbot world, but there is usually a free version that anyone can use. 

It may be limited, but for casual users it's probably enough. At least, it's a tool that can prompt some people to pay for premium access and see how good it is. So if Amazon is thinking about locking its new Alexa behind the paywall, it would be wise to offer some kind of free access as well. At least, it's free for prime members. 

Obviously, we need to be patient and wait for how this will work in the future. For now, not to mention all the details about the price and features, because we don't know when the Alexa chatbot will launch.