‘Alright mate?’: Amazon pins UK hopes on AI upgrade of Alexa
“Commiserations, mate, Chelsea lost 3-0 in the Champions League last night against Paris Saint-Germain,” says Alexa as it attempts to break the news gently to an awaiting Blues fan.Such is the injection of personality and understanding that Amazon hopes will lead to Britons re-engaging with their millions of Alexa devices, restoring it to the cutting edge of voice assistants rather than resigned to being a glorified egg timer.After its early access launch last year in the US, the long-awaited generative AI upgrade Alexa+ is finally making its debut in the UK, supporting eight years of existing devices strewn through more than half of UK households.With the UK being Amazon’s most engaged market and more than 40 accents to contend with across the UK and Ireland, the “next-generation ambient AI assistant” has its work cut out for it.The service will be available immediately for new purchases of Amazon’s latest generation of Echo and Show devices, with an invite system in operation for existing devices, which Amazon’s head of Alexa and Echo, Daniel Rausch, insists will progress faster than it did in the US.
“We’ve eliminated the need for that Alexa-speak, such as ‘turn on bedroom lamp two’, you can just speak naturally,” Rausch said.“Alexa+ knows you, your home, your family.And is available anywhere, any time, as life does not happen in a chat box.”Much of the experience has been built in Amazon’s AI labs in the UK in Cambridge, but in limited demos Alexa+ butchered the pronunciation of player names and used “zero” instead of “nil” for football scores.Amazon still has work do to.
The upgrade is free during its “early access” period, but it remains to be seen whether users will subsequently be willing to fork out £19.99 a month for Alexa+ or take up an Amazon Prime subscription into which it is bundled.Its reception in the US, where it has been widely available since February, has been mixed, with critics complaining of inconsistency and fabrication – two issues that have dogged genAI since its inception.Despite this, Rausch says engagement with Alexa+ has increased month on month, including a 25% increase in music listening and a 50% increase in smart home control, due to the reduced friction and vastly expanded capability.Amazon promises Alexa+ can perform complex multi-stage actions, such as turning off the lights, turning down the thermostat, locking the doors and putting the alarm on all in one command.
It also promises to be able to remember your likes and dislikes, the teams or players you support, the movies you like and the music you love, and to be able to do that for different members of your family.But Amazon is also stepping into the world of agentic AI using links with partner services to perform real-world actions on your behalf, such as ordering a takeaway, booking a restaurant in a free slot on your calendar or remembering your mother’s birthday and buying her a present – from Amazon, of course.Whether that’s enough to revitalise smart speaker sales that have reportedly fallen off a cliff in the UK and stem job losses remains to be seen.Injecting something as powerful as genAI into the ambient environment of millions of homes where any member of the family, including kids whom Alexa+ is much better at understanding, can interact with it also carries great risk.But unlike some competitors, Rausch says Amazon is ready.
“With years of experience of building consumer AI products we know you have to intentionally build guard rails into a product from the beginning, so that it doesn’t answer problematic questions.Someone is trying to break it every day.It’s not something we crow about, but that’s why we have the Responsible AI team.That’s their entire job.”
‘We don’t tell the car what it should do’: my ride in a self-driving taxi
Driverless ‘robotaxis’ will be accepting fares in Britain’s biggest city by the end of next year. Can they deal with London’s medieval roads, hordes of pedestrians and errant ebikers? I got in the passenger seat to find out‘I’m really excited to show you this,” says Alex Kendall, the CEO of Wayve, as he gets behind the wheel of one of the company’s electric Ford Mustangs. Then he does … nothing. The car pulls up to a junction at a busy road in King’s Cross, London, all by itself. “You can see that it’s going to control the speed, steering, brake, indicators,” he says to me – I’m in the passenger seat
Actors, musicians and writers welcome UK U-turn on AI use of copyrighted work
Actors, musicians and writers have welcomed the UK government’s decision to backtrack on plans to let AI firms use copyright-protected work without permission.Technology secretary Liz Kendall said it no longer had a “preferred option” on copyright reform, having previously supported a proposal allowing tech companies to take copyrighted work – unless rights holders opted out of the process.“We have listened,” said Kendall on Wednesday, “we have engaged extensively with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions, academics and AI adopters, and that engagement has shaped our approach. This is why we can confirm today that the government no longer has a preferred option.”The proposal had triggered a backlash from Elton John, who called the government “absolute losers” over the plans
How AI is actually changing day-to-day work
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, chuffed about One Battle After Another’s big win at the Oscars. This week, we’re examining how artificial intelligence is changing the everyday reality of white-collar work in the US, the roots of the current appetite for AI in war, and the United Kingdom’s phantom datacenters.As part of the Guardian’s Reworked series on AI’s effect on modern work, we published two stories this week on how specific jobs are changing: those of university professors and Amazon’s technical employees. Both groups are wrestling with profound shifts
Inside the fiery, deadly crashes involving the Tesla Cybertruck
Cybertrucks have locked passengers inside and burned so hot they’ve disintegrated drivers’ bones. Victims’ families blame what they say is the faulty design of a truck Elon Musk calls ‘apocalypse-proof’When sheriff deputies arrived at the scene of a late-night crash off a desolate Texas road in August 2024, they could see a giant pyre through heavy smoke.According to police reports detailing the events of that night, the officers tried to approach the vehicle, but the fire burned too intensely. They saw it was a Tesla Cybertruck and couldn’t see anyone inside. So they combed the surrounding area for the driver
Instagram to remove end-to-end encryption for private messages in May
Instagram will stop encrypting private messages between users from May, after enduring years of criticism from law enforcement and child safety groups over the feature.Meta quietly announced this month on its help page for Instagram and in an updated 2022 news post that end-to-end encryption would no longer be available on direct messages between users on Instagram from 8 May 2026.It means Meta will be able to see the contents of messages between all users – which so far it only could for those who did not enable encryption.The feature already appeared deactivated for Australian users, when Guardian Australia tested on Wednesday.A spokesperson for Meta said the decision to abandon encryption was due to low uptake
Subnautica 2 publisher’s CEO used ChatGPT in failed bid to avoid paying US$250m bonus to own studio head, court hears
A South Korean gaming publisher who hatched a plan using ChatGPT to remove the heads of one of its own game studios in a bid to avoid paying US$250m has been ordered by a US court to reverse the removal.The dispute stems from South Korean game developer Krafton’s acquisition of Unknown Worlds Entertainment, makers of the Subnautica video game, for $500m in 2021.Krafton agreed the studio would remain independent and that its leadership would retain operational control and could only be fired for cause, according to the ruling by vice-chancellor Lori Will of the court of chancery in Delaware.If Unknown Worlds met certain targets, Krafton would pay the studio what is known as an earnout worth up to $250m.As the studio was last year ramping up to release Subnautica 2, internal projections showed it would trigger the earnout, according to the ruling
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‘Alright mate?’: Amazon pins UK hopes on AI upgrade of Alexa
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