by Key Takeaways
- Anthropic, a generative AI company, is receiving an additional $4 billion from Amazon.
- Additionally, Anthropic will depend increasingly on Amazon Web Services.
- It’s possible that Amazon will fully commit to a Claude-based Alexa AI assistant.
Ahead of a long-awaited update to its Alexa voice assistant, Amazon has announced that it is investing billions of dollars in generative AI company Anthropic.
Amazon says it is investing an extra $4 billion on top of the $4 billion it provided in September. Additionally, Anthropic has chosen to engage with Amazon Web Services as its primary AI training partner. The AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips will be used to train and implement foundational AI models. AWS is currently Anthropic’s main cloud service provider.
Although developers working with Anthropic’s Claude AI will be more directly impacted by the closer links, there are rumors that Amazon is developing an internal version of Alexa called “Remarkable Alexa” that will be powered by Claude. That would enable users to provide more complicated orders and engage in lengthy discussions with Alexa-enabled gadgets. More sophisticated smart home automations or simultaneous meal ordering and email composition are a couple examples.
Remarkable Alexa was supposed to launch in October, according to some rumors, but the business has reportedly run into technical difficulties. The business may still be working to address issues like slow response times and erratic smart home control even though it seems to have moved from its own AI technology to Claude. The present version of Alexa should continue to be free, but when the improved version is complete, it may cost $5 to $10 a month.
Although the exact date of the deployment is unknown, Amazon may need to update its Echo speakers and screens beforehand. Its flagship Echo speaker may not have the processing capability required for generative AI because it was released in September 2020. Although it just released the Echo Show 21 and a second-generation Echo Show 15, some of its smart screens are also quite old.
