Amazon.com will introduce a more conversational artificial intelligence-powered version of its Alexa voice assistant later this year and plans to charge a monthly subscription fee to offset technology costs, according to reports.

Although the pricing of the new services has not yet been determined by the e-commerce behemoth, Alexa will not be part of its well-liked $139 yearly Prime package, as per reports.

In September, the company said that it was developing a generative AI version of Alexa in response to increasing competition from chatbots developed by OpenAI and Google, an Alphabet company.

In its annual shareholder letter, which was released last month, it reaffirmed the goal and stated that it was developing GenAI applications for all of its consumer companies, including a more powerful Alexa.

Meanwhile, OpenAI last week announced GPT-4o, a new AI model that lets users talk to ChatGPT and get real-time, lag-free responses. Additionally, it may stop ChatGPT.

Google also unveiled enhanced iterations of its Gemini chatbot and enhancements to its search engine.
Apple is also preparing an AI update for its virtual assistant, Siri, which is seen to be another laggard in the race for AI.

The Alexa upgrade would make use of Amazon's own Titan large language model.

The company has placed significant wagers on AI, such as a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, a startup whose chatbot Claude faces off against ChatGPT.

However, investors are concerned that Microsoft's early advantage in the AI race—given its investment in OpenAI—may enable it to overtake Amazon Web Services, the industry leader, in terms of market share in the cloud computing sector.