I've been thinking about this moment. The moment right before you ask your smart home to do something. There's this tiny calculation happening in your head. You're translating what you actually want into the exact phrase the device will understand. Alexa, um, open blinds to 20. No, make that 35%. Alexa, play music. Play my workout playlist 50%. No, no. We've been doing this for years, training ourselves to talk to computers. But honestly, what if we don't have to do that anymore? Alexa, good morning.
Okay, intro music.
So, Amazon says Alexa Plus has fundamentally changed that it's gone from reactive, waiting for the right command, to proactive, understanding what you actually mean. So, when I was invited to Seattle to talk to Panos Panay, the head of Amazon's devices and services, I wanted to ask him more about this because I've heard this promise before a lot of times. Alexa has been around for such a long time.
And Alexa Plus, one of the main things people want to know is how has it gone from being reactive, right? It's been reactive in the past, to being more proactive and more engaging. Like before you answer, I'll just interject some of my experience here because I've seen a lot of those changes there. I love the fact that Alexa Plus works with third-party devices quite effectively. So, it means that while I'm here in the office, I can find out what's going on in my sunroom to see if the light's on, to see what the temperature is within the area. But most importantly, I can also look into it without actually calling the camera out. Alexa, show me Noah's room.
Okay, opening the Noah's room camera.
Mind you, that's a Nest camera. So what did you guys do to do that quick change where I don't have to go back to key prompts and go specifics?
Part of the challenge in the past was you had to kind of use what you would call a learned language, maybe we would say Alexa-speak. And so what you said is, hey, I want to see what's happening in the room. You're not giving a direct command, and Alexa can think for you and say, I think here's what Anabong's trying to solve for.
Yeah. This is why it just makes things easier. Just say what you're thinking as if you were talking to your assistant or a friend. When you start using natural language, everything gets easier. I want to play music everywhere, but don't wake Noah.
Imagine that scenario. That means don't play music in Noah's room. I'm going to play music. Noah's fine. Like I will tell you, if you have Ring cameras and Alexa and you put those things together, it is magical. I know right now I can tell you if the dog has been fed this morning. Like, has anyone fed Aries today? Yes or no? And you know who knows that answer? But Alexa has it. In this case, I just said, has anyone fed Aries? Alexa just knows. Aries is the dog. The dog bowl is in the pantry. The camera that's looking at the dog bowl knows if Aries has eaten from it.
Yeah. Just speak what you're thinking and let your assistant make the inferences, understand what you're trying to do, and then solve for you. I think that is a lot of the power of this product right now. So, that's step one. You can talk naturally to Alexa Plus, which is great, but understanding the word is different from understanding the meaning of the context of that word or the action. So, I decided to try something different. Alexa, make the lounge darker.
Instead of Alexa, close the blinds. Alexa, can you make it darker in the room? I'm going to look at the lights and I'm going to look, is there any blinds in here? I'm going to look at is there any other elements that can help darken the room? Got it. I'll close the blinds and I'll dim the lights. But I didn't say dim the lights to 20%, I didn't say close the blinds. I just said I need it darker. Alexa Plus is understanding what you're asking for, but there's another layer I want to test out.
Your shopping list has five items. Here are the first five: toilet paper, mayonnaise, Chinese five spice, paprika, and oyster sauce. I've shown all five items.
Uh, can you add toilet paper to that shopping list?
Looks like you're already stocked up on the essentials. Toilet paper is already on your shopping list.
Oh, my bad. Sorry. Um, can you also add Coke Zero?
Coke Zero's been added to your shopping list. Anything else you'd like to add?
