Major travel brands including Tripadvisor and Uber have partnered with Amazon for the debut of its next-generation voice assistant.
NB: This is an article from Staah
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“With 600 million Alexa devices now out in the world, the latest advancements in generative AI have unlocked new possibilities – enabling us to reimagine the experience in our pursuit of making customers’ lives better and easier every day,” said Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services in a blog post focused on more than 50 things to try with Alexa+.
Amazon said it is rolling out Alexa+ out over the next few weeks in the United States, with an “early access” period, and in waves over the following months. The voice assistant, which is built on large language models that can be found on Amazon Bedrock, will be free for Prime members and available for a free for everyone else.
Using voice, users can ask Alexa+ to provide information about Uber about ride options and wait times and can then book the ride without touching their phone.
Tripadvisor and Fodors have also partnered with Amazon to provide Alexa+ users with travel planning assistance from inspiration to recommendations. Amazon stopped short of saying that Alexa+ can book travel, which OpenAI’s “Operator,” – currently operating in a research preview and with Tripadvisor as a partner – is meant to be capable of doing. Tripadvisor declined to comment for this story.
Douglas Quinby, co-founder and CEO of Arival, said there’s “enormous opportunity” for AI applications for improved customer experiences. And that opportunity has warranted “very real success stories,” he said.
But he was skeptical and said that there’s been little uptake on chat and voice tools powered by AI when it comes to planning and discovery of activities, tours and also attractions.
“Experiences are not a commodity sale. An experience is about ‘How am I going to spend me time.’ Travelers need more than price, location and star rating,” he said. “They need a feeling, an emotional connection. Can Alexa, Claude or ChatGPT deliver that?”
Lorraine Sileo, senior analyst and founder of Phocuswright Research, said it’s “about time” Alexa stepped up its game.
“It has a long way to go to compete with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot et al for generating travel (or any other) recommendations,” she said in an email. “But considering Alexa’s convenience (can yell from any room) and its integration with Fodor’s and TripAdvisor, Alexa+ has its place for top-of-the-funnel research.”
Sileo cautioned she’s not sure that that top-of-funnel placement is enough to warrant travel booking decisions.
