Amazon's paid Alexa is coming to fill the $25 billion hole dug by Echo devices

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon's plan to launch a paid version of Alexa is part of a strategy shift to address the more than $25 billion losses it incurred in its devices business from 2017 to 2021. The AI-supercharged Alexa, which is rumored to cost up to $10/month, could arrive as early as this month.

With the potential launch just weeks away, employees are reportedly skeptical about whether people will like the new version of Alexa. A person working on the Alexa team told the WSJ that the division is moving toward a deadline to launch subscriptions even though "the technology isn't there yet." Former Amazon devices chief David Limp first revealed Amazon's plan to charge for an improved version of Alexa last year.

As Reuters previously reported, the "more conversational" Alexa will have generative AI features that could allow it to complete multiple tasks in a single prompt and learn from users to create routines. But according to the report, Amazon is far behind in this project. Last month, a Fortune report suggested that Alexa is not even close to fulfilling Amazon's mission of being the "world's best personal assistant" as the team continues to grapple with technical and organizational issues.

According to the WSJ report, employees are also concerned about whether people will want to pay for a subscription other than Amazon's $139/year Prime membership. With no charge for using the basic versions of AI assistants - such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and soon, an improved version of Siri - Amazon may find it difficult to charge for Alexa, especially when the existing version of the voice assistant will remain free.