What to expect at Amazon's event this week: Alexa 2.0, new Echos, and Fire TV upgrades

Amazon has been focused on bringing generative AI to Alexa for the past few years, hitting multiple delays in launching new features that the company first announced in September 2023. The delayed Alexa 2.0 seems poised for a 2025 release, as evidenced by the surprise Devices and Services event Amazon is hosting this week.

Amid rumors of Alexa 2.0 shortcomings, Amazon skipped its 2024 Devices and Services event, where the company typically announces new Alexa features and hardware devices. Now, the company plans to host an Amazon Alexa-themed event on Wednesday, where it is expected to unveil the voice assistant’s generative AI features and finally put an ETA on its launch.

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The event will take place on Feb. 26 in New York City and will be Panos Panay’s first since joining the Devices and Services division after his Microsoft exit. But aside from new Alexa features, Amazon could be preparing to launch other devices.

What to expect from Amazon’s February 2025 event

Generative AI in Alexa

Adding generative AI to Alexa is expected to be the main event. During the last Devices and Services event in 2023, Amazon announced a gen AI-powered Alexa coming to an Echo device near you. That Alexa would feature a more natural cadence in its replies, could handle multiple prompts in a session, and would generate content instead of providing canned answers to questions. It would also feature greater customization power to remember user preferences (perhaps like ChatGPT’s Memory) for more productive user interactions.

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But Amazon said little about the new Alexa after the event, with rumors suggesting that the company was repeatedly forced to delay its gen AI launch due to deficient performance. After skipping last year’s event, the company sent out invitations to an event this Wednesday, Feb. 26. The logical conclusion: This is the dawn of Alexa 2.0 (especially considering that the invitations are Alexa-themed).

While Alexa dominates the US market for virtual assistants, preferred by two-thirds of Americans, it’s also recently fallen behind other assistants, including Google and, most recently, Siri. The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in recent years triggered a tidal wave of generative AI that pushed other virtual assistants ashore, while Alexa appears to have sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

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The new breed of gen AI-powered virtual assistants — ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot powered by OpenAI’s technologies, Google Assistant powered by Gemini, and Siri powered by Apple LLMs — have surged ahead in the past two years. While their progress has been riddled with obstacles and delays, they’ve all gotten there sooner or later — except for Amazon’s Alexa. 

Subscription tiers

Amazon’s Alexa 2.0 is expected to work behind a subscription service that would range from $5 to $10 monthly. While this has been rumored for about a year, Amazon plans to introduce the upgraded Alexa for free to a limited number of users.

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The “Classic Alexa” will still be available for users who prefer not to pay the monthly fee, though it’s not known how long Amazon plans to maintain the current version.

New Echo devices

While Amazon skipped its large-scale Devices and Services event last year, it still released several new devices from October through December of 2024, including the largest Echo Show ever — the 21-inch model. Amazon also released a new Echo Show 15, its first-ever color Kindle, the Kindle Colorsoft, a new Kindle Scribe, a Fire TV Stick HD, and a new Fire HD 8 tablet.

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While this is already a full lineup of devices, Amazon could still launch some new hardware during this week’s event. Amazon could debut new Echo speakers, like an improved Amazon Echo or Echo Dot, both due for an upgrade, or a new smart display designed to take advantage of the new generative AI-powered Alexa.

The summer of 2024 also saw the launch of the Echo Spot, a new smart speaker with a small screen that revives the clock radio. 

Fire TV upgrades

While most of the focus for this Amazon Devices and Services event is on Alexa, we could see some Fire TV upgrades coming to Amazon’s lineup of smart TV devices, especially AI-powered updates.

Amazon announced the Fire TV Omni Mini-LED series of smart TVs last November, and a new Soundbar Plus Series and upgraded 4-Series. While I’m not expecting a new lineup of Fire TV panels, I could see Amazon releasing new generative AI capabilities for existing Fire TVs or revamping its older Fire TV Sticks.