CATCHING THE A.I

Overtaken by ChatGPT and Gemini, Amazon hopes upgraded Alexa+ Assistant will close the gap and capture users’ imaginations

- JUSTIN CONNOLLY

IT’S the dawn of a new era for Amazon - the company has finally launched its next-gen Alexa AI assistant in the UK.

Alexa+ is available now to those buying one of the latest Echo devices, and those who have already bought one can sign up to join an “early access” programme, with Amazon promising to open up this new world to hundreds of thousands of users soon.

For a long time it seemed that Amazon was in the AI box-seat with Alexa. It was far and away the most popular way to access any kind of AI features. That changed pretty quickly when OpenAl unleashed ChatGPT, and others - especially Google with its Gemini system — followed suit with new and more competent models that have very rapidly changed the game over the last couple of years.