Alexa+ Minus the Users?
Caroline O'Donovan
It feels like “launches” is doing a lot of work in this title. As best anyone can tell, no one who is actually on social media was a part of the group graced with access. As I quipped to Joanna Stern, who has been looking into the matter for two days across several social media networks with no luck, perhaps this “roll-out” was to one user for one second on 3/31 at 11:59:59 to qualify for “next month”.
During the Alexa+ event in February – for which there is still no video, by the way — Amazon’s hardware chief Panos Panay said that the service he was busy hyping to no end would start to roll out in March. We got right to the cusp of that deadline before Amazon clearly started to alert the media that the roll-out had started. And still, seemingly no one has it.
To be clear and fair, I’m sure someone has it. It’s hard to believe Amazon would actually lie in this way. But the truth seems nearly as directionally dishonest in calling this a “launch”. Not only is the roll-out comically limited, many of the features touted on stage at the event aren’t going to be live any time soon.
Some of the new features Amazon previewed at the February event won’t become available for two months after Monday’s launch, and some will take even longer, according to internal company documents seen by The Washington Post. At the event held in New York, Amazon head of devices Panos Panay said Alexa+ would “start to roll out” in March “and in waves over the subsequent months.”
The delayed features that documents say don’t yet meet Amazon’s standards for public release include the ability to order takeout on Grubhub based on a conversation with Alexa+ about what you’re craving, or for Alexa+ to visually identify family members and remind them to do specific chores like walking the dog.
Other Alexa+ features — like brainstorming a gift idea or generating a story to entertain your kids — also won’t be released until later, the documents said.
Are you feeling deja vu or is it just me? Doesn’t this sound a lot like what Apple has been getting raked over the coals about with regard to Siri? Of course, this should hardly be a surprise — especially if you’re a regular reader of Spyglass. As I’ve written several posts expressing skepticism that these new upgrades are going to work in the ways promised, just as happened with Siri. In particular, Alexa, I’m Skeptical, which was immediately following the Alexa+ event just based on the reports — namely word of the very limited roll-out strategy.
But then I started listening to Panay and others doing the rounds after the events on podcasts and I was actually even more skeptical about the prospects of Alexa+ any time soon. It all just sounded a bit too rosy… to put it nicely. I put it less nicely in: Is Amazon Writing Checks That Alexa+ Can't Cash? As I wrote:
It was nothing Panay said – actually, almost the opposite. He spoke a lot of words in the hour-long interview but didn't really say much of anything. It was a lot of praise for his team and Amazon itself. Normally, you might chalk it up to being both a good boss and team player. But honestly, it was too much. It was his way to deflect nearly every question while making grandiose yet vague claims about how they nailed it.
Panay's style of talking about the products he oversees has never really been my cup of tea, dating back to his days at Microsoft overseeing Surface, but doing that type of stuff on stage is sort of understandable. It's a presentation. But for him to be over-the-top effusive with nary a mention of any of the real challenges that the team may have had in getting to this point felt... off. Too lightweight. Too breezy. Like he was breezing right past some things that perhaps he prefer not talk about. Some things perhaps not quite ready for prime time yet – nor particularly close.
My product spidey-senses, in so far as I have them, were going off left and right.
And I was immediately reminded of the feeling I had about the "revamped" Siri after Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence at WWDC last year. To be clear, the Alexa situation doesn't seem to be as bad as it is with Siri, but there are obviously quite a few similarities. Including the fact that both were the first-movers in the market, which is likely what is now hampering their transformations in ways big and small. But hey, at least Alexa+ was able to launch – or, presumably will in a few weeks – as we approach a year since that new Siri unveil, we still don't even have a beta of her new functionality. Yes, we've gotten small updates here and there, namely to the Siri UI (which is nice!), but the real promise was a completely overhauled Siri that would just work, this time.
And:
But going back, when will we actually see Alexa+? Amazon is starting by rolling the upgrade out to a pretty small subset of the Alexa user base later this month, they say. It will be just four devices, all with screens and all far more expensive than the undoubtedly far more ubiquitous cheaper smart speakers. And just in the US. And even then, it may be further gated by the waitlist you have to sign up for. It feels like Amazon is slow-rolling this because they clearly are. And you can't help but wonder if that's in no small part because Alexa+, too, isn't really ready to roll. But Amazon knew that they couldn't wait any longer to show her off after first promising these upgrades a year and a half ago, while watching her 10th anniversary – the perfect and natural unveiling point – slip by without a mention.
Finally:
To his and their credit, they did live demos on stage, not just on pre-recorded videos as Apple did. In hindsight, it's pretty clear that Apple was nowhere near the point of using Siri to get your mom home from the airport, but it seems like Alexa may actually be closer to that. But how long will it be until a wide swath of Alexa users are able to do this? It's anyone's guess right now. Panay certainly didn't slip up on a date other than implying that it would be coming soon. We'll see.
After all, "coming soon" ended up meaning nearly 18 months the last time Amazon brought up the vague timeframe. It feels like if it was really "soon", they'd commit to the first half of this year. But oddly, they're not even committing to "this year" at all, which is mildly worrying. I suspect we're going to see a very slow roll-out with four devices becoming eight or ten. Then expanding via new devices in the fall. But still, all the promised features may not yet be live, those will come "soon"...
The question then becomes: is it worse to completely delay a launch or roll it out in such a comically small way that it’s basically meaningless? Of course, Amazon already delayed this whole thing once, so couldn’t really do so again. Then again, Apple has also been doing the piecemeal rollout for months now. Both situations seem not great. And as noted above multiple times — both situations are likely caused by the same basic issues: early success in the space!
For now, Amazon is handling the PR around all of this better. We’ll see if that continues…
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler