Amazon Unveils New Echo Sevices Designed For Alexa+

On Tuesday, Amazon introduced four new smart speakers and voice-activated displays featuring Alexa+, its generative AI-powered personal assistant.

The lineup includes:

• Echo Dot Max: A compact smart speaker priced at $99.99.
• Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11: Voice-activated displays priced at $179.99 and $219.99, respectively.
• Echo Studio: A high-end speaker with enhanced audio, priced at $219.99.

All devices are available for preorder, with Alexa+ early access included. The Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio ship on October 29, while the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 ship on November 12.

Unveiled at Amazon’s fall hardware event in New York, these are the first devices launched under Panos Panay, who joined Amazon in 2023 from Microsoft. They are also the first to integrate Alexa+, which began rolling out in early access in February.

“These are the most powerful Echo devices we’ve ever created,” Panay said, highlighting custom silicon, advanced sensors, improved microphones, noise cancellation, and sleek designs. The devices feature new AZ3 and AZ3 Pro chips for faster, AI-driven edge processing, according to Daniel Rausch, head of Amazon’s Alexa and Echo businesses.

The devices include the Omnisense platform, enhancing Alexa’s contextual awareness. For example, the Echo Show can recognize users and provide personalized insights, such as sleep analysis or alerts about an unlocked door after midnight.

Amazon is updating its hardware and software to compete in the generative AI era, facing competition from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Additionally, Amazon confirmed its July acquisition of Bee, an AI wearables startup developing a wristband for recording and transcribing conversations, signaling its expansion beyond Alexa and Echo devices.