Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa team is inviting journalists to attend a big product event in New York City later this month, where it’s expected to announce more advanced artificial intelligence capabilities for its popular digital assistant.

One of Amazon’s key Alexa executives, Panos Panay, who is senior vice president of devices and services at the company, is promised to be in attendance at the event, which is set to take place on Feb. 26. The company has confirmed it will announce news from the Alexa team, but hasn’t said much beyond that.

Nonetheless, it’s well-known that Amazon has been working to beef up the AI capabilities of its voice-activated Alexa assistant for some time. The company needs to do that, for Alexa is facing stiff competition from rival companies such as OpenAI, Google LLC and Microsoft Corp., whose own AI offerings all compete with Alexa to a certain extent.

Amazon was handing out invites to select members of the press as Reuters reported that executives have scheduled a “Go/No-go” meeting for Feb. 14 to prepare for the release of a new version of Alexa.

One possible update might be the “Let’s Chat” feature that was first shown off in a preview of a redesigned Alexa in 2023. During that demo, it showcased a surprisingly humanlike conversation between the voice assistant and an Amazon executive. But the company didn’t say at the time when customers might expect to see those enhanced conversational capabilities. Last year, the company canceled its traditional fall event, where it has previously always announced new products.

The suggestion is that Alexa’s new conversational AI capabilities were delayed, but that doesn’t mean the company has stopped working on them. Last May, a report by CNBC claimed that the company was developing new AI features for Alexa that would be powered by its homegrown Titan AI models, and said the company plans to charge users a subscription fee to access them. A later report said Alexa may also integrate Anthropic PBC’s Claude large language model series.

That was followed by Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy’s comments during an earnings call in October, where he told analysts that we could see a new version of Alexa arriving in the “near future.” He said at the time that his team is trying to “rearchitect the brain of Alexa” with new foundational large language models.

One possible reason for the apparent delay in shipping Alexa’s new AI capabilities is that Jassy has embarked on a comprehensive cost-cutting campaign over the last couple of years. As part of that effort, the company has laid off thousands of workers, including many at its devices and services unit, which leads the development of Alexa.

Amazon’s problem is that, although Alexa is incredibly popular, with hundreds of millions of users globally, it has struggled to make money from the service. The company’s traditional model has always been to launch new devices at very low prices, then leverage them to promote additional products and services. But it hasn’t worked very well for the devices business, which is believed to have racked up billions of dollars in losses over the years.

Image: Amazon