Under new chief executive Andy Jassy’s tenure this change of focus has resulted in significant layoffs in Amazon’s Alexa team late last year as executives scrutinize the product’s direct contribution to the company’s bottom line. “If you have anything you can do that you might be able to directly monetize, you should do it,” was the recent diktat from Amazon leaders, according to one current employee on the Alexa team. As hype in the tech world turns feverishly to generative AI as the “next big thing,” the moment has caused many to ask hard questions of the previous “next big thing”-the much-lauded voice assistants from Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others.Ī “grow grow grow” culture described by one former Amazon Alexa marketing executive has now shifted to a more intense focus on how the device can help the e-commerce giant make money. His voice assistant would help do all manner of tasks, such as shop online, control gadgets, or even read kids a bedtime story.īut the Amazon founder’s grand vision of a new computing platform controlled by voice has fallen short.

It has been more than a decade since Jeff Bezos excitedly sketched out his vision for Alexa on a whiteboard at Amazon’s headquarters.