Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Panos, the way that I look at this is that this is the first generation of Amazon hardware that has your fingers on it, right? And as a place to start, could we talk a bit about the hardware innovation, the areas that you feel are most important here in this generation?
Yeah, I think this is, first, it's an incredible team that's building these products. And these products are designed from the silicon up. Quite literally, this is custom silicon built for the Alexa products. But there's also a focus right now on the sensing capabilities from the camera to the microphones to just presence detection through Wi-Fi.
It's really important because you can start enabling these proactive scenarios. The other thing is great sound. Ed is so important for our customers. Just filling your house with sound. I think sometimes we forget the emotion of music or how clear you want to have that conversation back and forth. So each one of these details is kind of thought through.
These products are built from the ground up, but this team has just literally pushed through every detail.
I think about this at a time where we are in a voice assistant or voice-based generative AI era, right? As you know, I have an Alexa device in almost every single room of my house. But when I think about the gen AI tools that I'm using- Yeah, which is cool, by the way. Right, it is, but here's the thing.
The Gen AI tools that I'm using every single day, I go to my smartphone because it's on my person. There isn't something that the Alexa device can do with the same immediacy. Maybe you disagree that my thumbs can do. So what is it about this generation of hardware that makes those form factors, the Echo devices and the range of other things, the right form factor for this era?
It's a good question. It's a good question. First, the new Alexa, Alexa Plus, is powered by AI. So it's LLM-backed, if you will. So limitless knowledge, limitless understanding, and you can have any conversation.
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Chapter 2: What is the focus of Amazon's new hardware generation?
It's quite conversational. So when you talk about what you're typing into a phone, one of the things I like talking about is, maybe even a little easier now, Ed, because you have all that kind of infra, you literally can just speak. We as a team call it ambient AI. And we believe that your Echo devices right now, as you light them up with Alexa Plus, just have any conversation at any time.
I think there's something quite powerful about that too, where a lot of times we take out our phone, we get distracted. I'm at the dinner table with my kids. We have this idea that we want to keep our phones down, right? Because we want to be present with each other. And there's so many times where you pull out your phone to answer a question, almost like you just said. But now it's just changed.
It's completely different. Just say, Alexa, have the conversation. It's quite literally all the information there. And it's conversational. Not only that, she can then get the next thing done for you. Let's say you have a conversation. You want to talk a little bit more about what's happening and what do we think about what's happening tomorrow.
You just add it to your calendar right there and then just with your voice. It's distraction free. It's ambient. And it's so fun because you're just engaged in a totally different way with your voice, just as you said.
Alexa Plus is listening more contextually. It is listening more intelligently. How do you build trust with the customer and consumer base knowing its capabilities?
We've been doing it for 10 plus years. This is what we are 100% focused on for our customers. At the end of the day, the way you do that is you give your customers full control, full control. Opt in, opt out, remember what you want. Do just literally control your data for yourself. Plus everything to Amazon is anonymized. So we don't really have any info.
So at the end of the day, it's up to you and what you do with your product. And I think that's what the answer is. That's You give customer full control, and we do. We're very proud of that. That's a big deal for us.
Panos, is there a generational divide in the Alexa user base? And how does this generation of hardware change that? In other words, is there just a group of people in society that are going to come to AI-enabled devices for the first time here? And if so, for what reason?
We do think so. We do think so. A couple of reasons. One, these are objects and they're beautiful. This matters. When you buy something, it's something you covet, something you wanted and you go after. Because it's so useful and it can get so much done for you and it has that depth of knowledge, we do think there's a whole new customer base coming in for Alexa to go use Alexa Plus.
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Chapter 3: How is AI integrated into Amazon's latest devices?
It's like picking my favorite is something I definitely don't want the team to say. So I'm going to say, I think I'm going to treat them and hold them all up equally as important. And really, it does come down to how they all connect together. So that really does.
As you've explained, Panos, it is a broad offering with lots of different subcategories. And I appreciate you taking the time and going so deep on it with me. Panos Panay, the Devices Chief at Amazon, really grateful for your time.
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