It’s been about three years since Amazon launched their personal assistance devices, Echo and Alexa, with the goal of making things easier on homeowners through the means of artificial intelligence.
While the devices have seen their fair share of competition and issues – from accidentally ordering products to playing pornography after a wrong command – the personal assistance has seen a lot of success since it’s debut in 2014. Top company executives state a large part of the current year’s success can also be contributed to Alexa and it’s ecosystem, as the company’s first-quarter sales jumped 23 percent to $35.7 billion.
Though the company is involved in an almost every industry know to man, the growth of their intelligence systems is at the top of their lists.
During a financial call earlier today an Amazon executive stated the company will be doubling down on its investment in the Alexa and Echo ecosystems. An investment that has seemingly already started, especially after they released the $50 Echo Dot and has opened up the Alexa software to developers.
“We’re very encouraged by the customer response to Echo products,” one exec said during the finacial call today. “Not only the products, but the ability now to use tablets as Echo devices, since we spread the Alexa technology to many of those devices. We’re also happy with the success we’ve had with developers; there are now more than 12,000 Alexa skills, so we think that’s all foundational.”
It should be interesting to see what exactly Amazon’s intentions are with growing their artificial intelligence and machine learning products, as their competition grows in the division every day. Most notably, Google announced a nearly $1 billion jump in its “other services” – including AI – earlier today, so hopefully, competition brings out the best in both products.
