Many new products and updates will be unveiled at today's Amazon event. But perhaps none is as big as the new AI updates coming to Amazon's Alexa smart assistant.

At its big product and service showcase event, Amazon executive Dave Limp showed off a new version of Alexa that is designed to be considerably more conversational and expressive than the current, more robotic version of Alexa. Basically, think of it as a ChatGPT-infused Alexa that has been significantly upgraded with generative AI.

The biggest upgrade? We no longer need to say "Alexa" over and over again. Thanks to the new large-scale language model (LLM) that Amazon has injected into Alexa, it can handle more natural conversations. It can also recognize the difference between pausing and actually ending a conversation, which is a big upgrade for those who need time to flesh out what they want to say.

This feature is still being tested, and unfortunately, there is no clear ETA on when we can expect this new version of Alexa. However, Amazon has stated that "Soon, U.S. customers will be able to access these new features through a free preview on the Echo devices they already own."

In the presentation of the new version of Alexa, it was clear that Amazon wanted to make a more conversational version of Alexa. The solution to this was LLM, which is optimized for spoken dialogue.

In building its LLM, Amazon focused on five "foundational capabilities." These included being conversational so that Alexa felt more natural when speaking and could respond with less latency.

Amazon also wanted Alexa to be personalized and conversational, actually knowing something about you. In a live demo, Limp asked Alexa about her "favorite soccer team." This was a real-world application and another principle underlying Amazon's new LLM that powers Alexa.

To provide such real-world experiences, Alexa needs to interact with APIs to access real-time information and perform tasks. And this should become easier starting in 2024. According to Amazon, "Starting next year, developers will be able to integrate their content and APIs with LLM to deliver richer, more engaging experiences using simple, code-free solutions"

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Finally, Amazon states that it wants Alexa, like ChatGPT, to have a personality and be trusted. The first part shouldn't be too difficult - generative AI chatbots can sometimes have too much personality. However, privacy is a real concern, given that the vast amount of data used by LLMs often leads to privacy issues. Amazon did not give many details about how it will handle your data securely, but it did make a special effort to let you know it cares.

This new version of Alexa seemed underwhelming at first, but after comparing it to the current version of Alexa, it finally hit home. The differences are very subtle on the outside and it feels like nothing has changed, but after a few minutes of watching the Alexa with its generative AI interact, you realize that everything has changed.

Amazon clearly wants to infuse generative AI into a wide range of products and experiences. For Alexa in particular, Amazon has announced games, music creation tools, a hands-free driving assistant, etc.

But Alexa is not the only AI upgrade. In addition to the new Fire Stick 4K and 4K Max, the Fire TV smart TV platform also received some upgrades announced today. It can now display AI-generated art with Ambient Experience, a feature similar to Samsung's The Frame. And, of course, there will be a more conversational version of Alexa with generative AI. Don't expect this to be the last product to feature a more conversational Alexa.