It has been more than a decade since Jeff Bezos excitedly sketched out his vision for Alexa on a whiteboard at Amazonโs headquarters. His voice assistant would help do all manner of tasks, such as shop online, control gadgets, or even read kids a bedtime story.
But the Amazon founderโs grand vision of a new computing platform controlled by voice has fallen short. As hype in the tech world turns feverishly to generative AI as the โnext big thing,โ the moment has caused many to ask hard questions of the previous โnext big thingโโthe much-lauded voice assistants from Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others.
A โgrow grow growโ culture described by one former Amazon Alexa marketing executive has now shifted to a more intense focus on how the device can help the e-commerce giant make money.