Panos Panay, Senior Vice President of Amazon Devices & Services, will speak at the Amazon Devices Launch event held in New York City, USA on February 26, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Amazon On Tuesday, it unveiled four new smart speakers and an improved voice-activated display with Alexa+, a personal assistant powered by generative artificial intelligence.
The company has debuted the Echo Dot Max, an improved version of the Compact Smart speaker. Amazon has also announced the new Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, priced at $179.99 and $219.99 respectively.
There is also a newer version of Echo Studio. This is a larger, higher-end model with more powerful speakers, priced at $219.99.
All devices are available for pre-order on Tuesday, and users will get Alexa+ early access “out of the box,” Amazon said. Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio Ship On October 29th, Echo will show the 8th and Echo show the show 11 ship on November 12th.
The device was launched at Amazon’s Fall Hardware Bonanza in New York. They are the first batch of improved products under the leadership of Panos Panay. Microsoft Hardware leader who joined Amazon in 2023.
It is also the first set of Amazon hardware that integrates the much-anticipated Alexa+, which debuted in February and slowly unfolded with early access for some users.
“These are the most powerful echo devices we’ve ever created,” Panay said on stage at the event. “Custom silicon, advanced sensors, our best microphone and sound, noise cancellation, user understanding, faster than what we’ve provided before. It’s also beautifully designed to fade to the background.”
In addition to the improved look, Amazon has added new AZ3 and AZ3 Pro chips to edge treatment to the devices. The devices are faster, more powerful, and “AI is being built quickly,” says Daniel Rausch, head of the Alexa and Echo business at Amazon.
The device also features Alexa’s “Improved Context Recognition” platform, which is what is called “Omnisense” platform. Echo Shows will recognize users and be able to provide personalized insights, such as analyzing how they slept last night, and warning users if they unlock their front door after midnight.
Amazon is facing increasing pressure to update hardware and software in the generation AI era, following the success of rivals such as Openai’s ChatGpt and Google’s Gemini. Meta also has Ray-Ban Meta Glass. This meta glasses use the Llama’s leading language model to answer questions spoken by users.
Amazon is also surpassing Alexa or Echo Smart speakers in search of opportunities for device growth.
The company confirmed in July that it had acquired AI wearable startup bee. This created a wristband that could record and transfer conversations.
