Andy Jassy Needs Alexa to Close the Sale, Not Win the A.I. Race

Andy Jassy has a lot riding on Alexa. On Amazon’s Q2 earnings call this summer, the CEO told investors that “everywhere Alexa goes, it drives momentum for the business,” and he had numbers to back it up. More than 350 million customers have used Alexa in the past 12 months, and in Q2, active users nearly doubled while interactions rose more than fivefold year-over-year. So what did Amazon bring to its annual fall hardware event on Wednesday (Sept. 30)? Mostly, a better way to pick a movie.

The main upgrade to Alexa+ is reasoning. Fire TV gets a dedicated Alexa+ hub that draws on awards, events, cultural references, subscriptions and watch history to answer questions a streaming menu can’t: the right viewing order for the Marvel universe, which shows got snubbed at the Emmys and the best-reviewed book-to-screen adaptations. Amazon also introduced a new Fire TV Stick 4K, which is slimmer and ships with Alexa+ built in, and a redesigned remote with new tactile controls.

That’s a narrower lineup than last September’s, when Amazon released new Echo and Kindle models, two new speakers and upgrades across its TV and Ring lines. It’s also a revealing one. The Alexa features Jassy talked up to Wall Street—personalized recommendations, product comparisons, price history, Price Alerts and Auto-Buy—had nothing to do with entertainment. For Amazon, Alexa has always mattered less as a conversation partner than as a means of converting users into buyers. It’s an assistant that sits in the living room and, ideally, completes the purchase. The timing makes the point. The launch comes days before Amazon’s Prime sale on Oct. 6-7 and the start of the holiday shopping season.

The commerce engine is where Alexa still has an advantage, because as a pure A.I. assistant, it’s being squeezed from two directions. On hardware, Apple is reportedly preparing its long-awaited move into the smart home, which would put Siri on the countertops and walls that Alexa has mostly had to itself. On intelligence, ChatGPT and Gemini already offer voice modes on the phones in users’ pockets—meaning anyone curious about the Marvel timeline can ask more powerful models.

Amazon still owns the hardware footprint and the checkout button. Wednesday’s event suggests Jassy is betting that those, more than the model underneath, are what will keep Alexa in the house.