Exclusive: Amazon mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp
独家消息：亚马逊考虑为无利润的 Alexa 服务和人工智能改进定价每月 5 至 10 美元

By  由 Greg Bensinger
Item 1 of 2 Prompts on how to use Amazon's Alexa personal assistant are seen alongside an Amazon Echo in an Amazon ?experience center? in Vallejo, California, U.S., May 8, 2018. Picture taken on May 8, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File Photo
[1/2]Prompts on how to use Amazon's Alexa personal assistant are seen alongside an Amazon Echo in an Amazon ?experience center? in Vallejo, California, U.S., May 8, 2018. Picture taken on May 8, 2018.... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
[1/2]在 2018 年 5 月 8 日美国加利福尼亚州瓦列霍的亚马逊“体验中心”内，可以看到如何使用亚马逊的 Alexa 个人助手的提示，旁边是一台亚马逊 Echo。图片拍摄于 2018 年 5 月 8 日。... 购买许可权阅读更多
SAN FRANCISCO, June 21 (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's plans.
旧金山，6 月 21 日(路透社) - 亚马逊(AMZN.O)计划对其十年来亏损的 Alexa 服务进行重大改造，包括引入具有两个服务层次的对话生成人工智能，并考虑收取约 5 美元的月费以访问更高级别的版本，据直接了解公司计划的人士透露。
Known internally as “Banyan,” a reference to the sprawling ficus trees, the project would represent the first major overhaul of the voice assistant since it was introduced in 2014 along with the Echo line of speakers. Amazon has dubbed the new voice assistant "Remarkable Alexa," the people said.
被内部称为“榕树”的项目将代表自 2014 年与 Echo 系列扬声器一起推出以来对语音助手进行的首次重大改造。据称，亚马逊将这款新语音助手称为“卓越的 Alexa”。
The sources include eight current and former employees who worked on Alexa and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential projects.
消息来源包括八名曾在 Alexa 工作过的现任和前任员工，他们要求匿名发言，因为未获授权讨论机密项目。
Amazon has pushed workers towards a deadline of August to prepare the newest version of Alexa, three of the people said, noting that CEO Andy Jassy has taken a personal interest in seeing Alexa reinvigorated. In an April letter to shareholders, Jassy promised a “more intelligent and capable Alexa,” without providing additional details.
亚马逊已经督促员工在 8 月份之前准备最新版本的 Alexa，三名知情人士表示，指出首席执行官安迪·贾西对于让 Alexa 重焕活力表现出了个人兴趣。在 4 月份致股东的信中，贾西承诺提供“更智能、更有能力的 Alexa”，但没有提供额外细节。
The company's plans for Alexa including pricing and release dates could be altered or canceled depending on the progress of Project Banyan, the people cautioned.
公司对 Alexa 的计划，包括定价和发布日期，可能会根据项目 Banyan 的进展而进行修改或取消，这是人们提醒的。
"We have already integrated generative AI into different components of Alexa, and are working hard on implementation at scale—in the over half a billion ambient, Alexa-enabled devices already in homes around the world—to enable even more proactive, personal, and trusted assistance for our customers," said an Amazon spokeswoman in a statement.
"亚马逊发言人在一份声明中表示：“我们已经将生成式人工智能集成到 Alexa 的不同组件中，并正在努力实现规模化应用——在全球家庭中已经有超过 50 亿台环境设备支持 Alexa，为我们的客户提供更加主动、个性化和可信赖的帮助。”"
The service -- which provides spoken answers to user queries, like the local weather, and can serve as a hub to control home appliances – was a pet project of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who envisioned a technology that could emulate the fictional voice computer portrayed on television’s Star Trek series.
该服务为用户提供口头回答，比如当地天气等，并可作为控制家用电器的中心，是亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝索斯的心血之作，他设想了一种能够模仿电视剧星际迷航中虚构的语音计算机的技术。
For Amazon, keeping up with rivals in generative AI is critical as Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and OpenAI have garnered more favorable attention for their so-called chatbots that can respond almost instantaneously with full sentences to complicated prompts or queries.
对于亚马逊来说，跟上竞争对手在生成式人工智能方面的步伐至关重要，因为谷歌（GOOGL.O）、微软（MSFT.O）和 OpenAI 已经因其所谓的聊天机器人而获得了更多的关注，这些机器人可以几乎即时地用完整的句子回应复杂的提示或查询。
The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 set off a frenzy of investing in AI firms and has pushed chipmaker Nvidia past Amazon and others by market capitalization, briefly becoming the world’s second-most valuable company.
2022 年底 ChatGPT 的发布引发了对人工智能公司的投资狂潮，并将芯片制造商英伟达的市值超过亚马逊等公司，暂时成为全球第二大市值公司。
Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab too is pushing ahead with its own AI strategy, including updating its Siri voice activated software embedded in iPhones to include more conversational answers.
苹果（AAPL.O）也在推进自己的人工智能战略，包括更新其 Siri 语音激活软件，使其嵌入在 iPhone 中，以包含更多对话式回答。
Some of the Amazon employees who have worked on the project say Banyan represents a “desperate attempt” to revitalize the service, which has never turned a profit, and was caught flatfooted amid the rise of competitive generative AI products over the past 18 months. Those people said they have been told by senior management that this year is a critical one for the service to finally demonstrate it can generate meaningful sales for Amazon.
一些参与该项目的亚马逊员工表示，Banyan 代表了一次“拼命的尝试”来振兴这项从未盈利的服务，在过去 18 个月里，在竞争性生成式人工智能产品崛起之际，该服务陷入被动。这些人表示，高级管理层告诉他们，今年对该服务来说是一个关键时刻，最终要证明它能为亚马逊带来有意义的销售额。
Accessed primarily through Amazon TVs and Echo speaker devices, Alexa is popular mostly for setting timers, quickly accessing the weather, playing songs or answering simple questions. Amazon’s hopes for goosing sales in its e-commerce operation through the service have fallen flat, mostly because users like to first see the products they are buying for easy comparison.
主要通过亚马逊电视和 Echo 扬声器设备访问，Alexa 主要流行于设置定时器、快速查看天气、播放歌曲或回答简单问题。亚马逊希望通过该服务推动其电子商务业务的销售，但大多数用户更喜欢先看到他们购买的产品，以便进行简单比较，因此这一希望未能实现。
The Seattle retailer cut thousands of jobs in the unit in late 2023, part of a major restructuring after a pandemic-fueled e-commerce surge lost steam.
西雅图零售商在 2023 年底裁减了数千个岗位，这是在疫情推动的电子商务激增失去动力后进行的一项重大重组的一部分。

'MUST WIN' "必胜"

With an embedded AI, Amazon expects Alexa customers will ask it for shopping advice like which gloves and hat to purchase for a mountain climbing trip, the people said, similar to a text-based service on its website known as Rufus that Amazon rolled out earlier this year.
凭借内置的人工智能，亚马逊预计 Alexa 客户将询问购买登山旅行所需手套和帽子等购物建议，类似于亚马逊今年早些时候推出的名为 Rufus 的网站文本服务。
Some said they’ve been told by senior management that 2024 represents a “must win” year for Alexa, which along with the Prime membership and Kindle and Fire devices are the brands most closely associated with Amazon.
一些人表示，他们听取了高级管理层的建议，称 2024 年是 Alexa 的“必胜”之年，Alexa 与 Prime 会员、Kindle 和 Fire 设备是与亚马逊最紧密相关的品牌。
But an AI-powered version of the service demonstrated in September has yet to be released to the broader public while competitors have pushed out multiple updates to their chatbots. In the demonstration, Alexa lost its robotic tone and answered questions like the start time for a football game. "You can now have a near-human-like conversations with Alexa," promised Dave Limp, Amazon's hardware chief at the time, who has since left the company.
但是，去年 9 月展示的由人工智能驱动的服务版本尚未发布给更广泛的公众，而竞争对手已经推出了多个更新版本的聊天机器人。在演示中，Alexa 失去了机械化的语调，回答了关于足球比赛开始时间等问题。当时的亚马逊硬件主管戴夫·林普承诺说：“现在你可以与 Alexa 进行接近人类般的对话。”此后，他已离开了公司。
Amazon is working to replace what it refers to internally as “Classic Alexa,” the current free version, with an AI-powered one and yet another tier that uses more powerful AI software for more complicated queries and prompts that people would have to pay at least $5 per month to access, some of the people said. Amazon has also considered a roughly $10-per-month price, they said.
亚马逊正在努力将其内部称为“经典 Alexa”的当前免费版本替换为基于人工智能的版本，以及另一个使用更强大人工智能软件的层次，用于更复杂的查询和提示，人们至少需要支付每月 5 美元才能访问，一些人表示。他们还表示，亚马逊还考虑过每月大约 10 美元的价格。
There is no tie-in with Amazon's $139-per-year Prime membership being considered, the people said.
据称，与亚马逊每年 139 美元的 Prime 会员资格无关。
As envisioned, the paid version could perform more intricate tasks such as composing a brief email, sending it and ordering dinner for delivery from Uber Eats, all from a single prompt, some of the people said. It could also eliminate the need to repeatedly say "Alexa" during a conversation with the software and offer more personalization, they said.
据一些人称，按照设想，付费版本可以执行更复杂的任务，如撰写简短的电子邮件、发送电子邮件，并从 Uber Eats 订购外卖，所有这些都可以通过一个单一提示完成。他们还表示，它还可以消除在与软件对话时反复说“Alexa”的需要，并提供更多个性化。
But the people said they struggled to see why customers would be willing to pay for a service, even a revamped one, that is offered for free today.
但是人们表示，他们很难理解为什么客户愿意为一项免费提供的服务，即使是经过改进的服务，付费。
Amazon has also been plagued by false starts in developing the AI and other challenges such as hallucinations – when software produces false or misleading information – and poor employee morale in the division.
亚马逊在开发人工智能等方面也遭遇了虚假的起步问题，以及幻觉等挑战，即软件产生虚假或误导性信息，以及部门内员工士气低落的问题。
Some of Amazon’s plans for the service were previously reported by Business Insider, including its struggles with the performance of the underlying AI and its hopes for a paid service, however Reuters is first to report the tiered pricing, internal deadline and potential monthly fee.
亚马逊的一些服务计划此前已被《商业内幕》报道，包括其与基础人工智能性能的斗争以及对付费服务的希望，然而路透社首次报道了分层定价、内部截止日期和潜在的月费。
Amazon is also aiming to supercharge the home automation offered through Alexa, the people said. Alexa now can wirelessly connect to so-called smart devices so that they can be controlled by voice, allowing a user to, for example, turn the porch lights on every day at 8 pm.
亚马逊还计划通过 Alexa 提供的家庭自动化功能进行强化，据知情人士透露。现在，Alexa 可以无线连接到所谓的智能设备，以便可以通过语音控制它们，让用户可以例如每天晚上 8 点打开门廊灯。
But Remarkable Alexa could learn from users so that it powers on the television for a favorite weekly program or turns on a user's coffee pot after a morning alarm goes off, which is possible today through prompts that Amazon calls Routines.
但是，Remarkable Alexa 可以从用户那里学习，以便在最喜欢的每周节目播出时打开电视，或者在早晨闹钟响起后打开用户的咖啡壶，这是通过亚马逊称为例行程序的提示实现的。
Some of the people noted that for such a service to work properly it will require customers to buy additional Alexa-enabled devices.
一些人指出，要使这样的服务正常运行，需要顾客购买额外的支持 Alexa 的设备。
The company had been working on devices last year to get the service into more rooms of the house, such as Alexa-enabled home energy consumption trackers and a carbon monoxide detector, people familiar with the matter previously told Reuters.
该公司去年一直在研发设备，以便将服务覆盖更多房间，例如配备 Alexa 的家庭能源消耗跟踪器和一台一氧化碳探测器，知情人士此前告诉路透社。

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Reporting by Greg Bensinger; editing by Kenneth Li and Nick Zieminski
由 Greg Bensinger 报道；由 Kenneth Li 和 Nick Zieminski 编辑

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Greg Bensinger joined Reuters as a technology correspondent in 2022 focusing on the world's largest technology companies. He was previously a member of The New York Times editorial board and a technology beat reporter for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. He also worked for Bloomberg News writing about the auto and telecommunications industries. He studied English literature at The University of Virginia and graduate journalism at Columbia University. Greg lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.
Greg Bensinger 于 2022 年加入路透社，担任科技记者，专注于全球最大的科技公司。他曾是《纽约时报》编辑委员会成员，也曾是《华盛顿邮报》和《华尔街日报》的科技记者。他还曾在彭博新闻工作，撰写有关汽车和电信行业的文章。他在弗吉尼亚大学学习英语文学，并在哥伦比亚大学获得新闻学研究生学位。Greg 与妻子和两个孩子居住在旧金山。

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