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The machines are getting smarter. This is tech Talk brought to you by Sky Natura.
So Alexa's begin going to become even more powerful in my household.
I don't know if I can handle that. I mean, I will say this.
She does handle things that I don't want to handle, Questions I don't want to have to answer. So it is kind of nice. We've kind of come to an understanding. It's just it's funny the way I hear my husband speak to her. It's almost like he wants to yell at me like that and can't, so he kind of takes it out on Alexa or you know, maybe your name that's better.
Mark Saltzman, our tech guru, joins us to talk about Alexa Plus.
What's going on, Mark?
Yeah, Hey, So I'm just returning from a coming out party for Alexa Plus. This is how they're celebrating how Amazon is celebrating the tenth anniversary of Alexa, the personal assistant used by more than on the world. Alexa Plus is a much smarter Alexa. That's the bottom line. It's leveraging generative AI, large language models that have been all the buzzs all the age, of course since chat Chipet, but Amazon's been working on their own for a long
while as well. So she's going to get a lot more intelligent, a lot more personal, meaning like not just conversational, but she's going to remember things about you and even proactive. So let me give you some examples of what we testrove yesterday in New York. And just so you know, when you launch her for the first time, you just say the wake word once and then after that you do not need to keep saying burning. It's more conversational
like some of these other chatting platforms. So for example, you can tell, like you Gary Shannon, you can tell Alexa that when you've got a food preference, like I love Thai food, but I'm also pescatarian, for example, And when you asked to recommend some recipes to make it home, it'll remember all of that, even if it's a year
down the road. It will. It may include a tie recipe with no beef for pork in it, for example, or if you ask for a good restaurant to make a reservation, she'll recommend one based on proximity to you and number of positive reviews. It leverages data from open table. It'll make a reservation for you or if you want to take out you know or whatever food delivery options. It'll remember what you tell it. It will access your
calendar in contacts with your permission. So Alexa may notice that you have double booked your daughter's dance recital with picking up a friend from the airport same time, and so she will call that out to you.
Maybe the day it's a real ding dong, isn't it, mark what's worse going to lax or going to the kid's recital?
I mean, I don't know that those are two selections for my day.
Well, assuming you would rather be at your dance recital, she Alexa may reckon men that you book an uber to pick up your friend instead, and she'll book it for you and even text your friend U pout it so that that's kind of cool. Where it can analyze it proactively Eliza calendar and make those changes and message
people you know. It could advise and summarize documents that you update blowed rather to electa dot com of a PDF from the HOA from your local HOA, And in the future you can say, can I install pnals on my roof am I allowed, and so we'll look at that doc that you uploaded in the past and she'll say, yes, but it seen from the road. Go for it, or let me order it for you. Are the popular solar panels, you can buy it that kind of stuff. It could find video clips. If you have not just a smart speaker,
but a smart display. You can say, hey, did anybody walk Buddy today? Buddy? And she'll remember that Buddy is the name of your dog, Okay, and so Alexa then will scrub forward through all of the ring video clips from your home and show you if fog was seen and if anybody was walking him or so. Yeah, I yeah. So it's a lot more conversational. It can create stories for kids, including images on the if you have a smart display, not just a smart speaker. So it was
actually really impressive. I got to say. It was a two hour demonstration and then some demos after that. And it's going to be free for prime members. That's otherwise it'll be nineteen ninety nine a month or so a plus and it's going to start rolling out in Yeah.
But the price point I know that, I mean you mentioned the price is there, nineteen ninety nine a month.
The issue you don't have Prime.
If you don't have Prime, my husband would never pay for his side piece.
Well that's that's kind of what I'm saying, is that the Alexa and all these you know helpers, they can do a lot stuff.
Does it really need to be that tailored for people?
Well, it's just it's supposed to help you get more done in less time. Right, It's supposed to be more intelligent.
And you don't have to.
Change how you speak to her either, like in the past you had to talk Alexa speak for her to understand you, or if you cut her off, she you had to ask it again, or if you said you stuttered. Now leveraging like hundreds and hundreds of other apps like Uber or you know, open table. I gave those examples. So it's just getting a lot more intelligent. It can analyze documents. Whether you deem twenty dollars a month is
reasonable or not. I mean, I think that's steep. But if you are already a Prime member, which to me, there's a huge valuebook proposition there with free deliveries and same day delivery, next day delivery, and access to Prime music and videos you know, like movies and TV shows. To me, it's a no brainer. But I can tell you from a tech standpoint, price notwithstanding, it was really impressive.
All right, Mark, you.
Don't sound convinced.
I'm not.
I'm not.
I don't want her in my house.
You could have the regular, all the loss that's been the same for ten years.
I support you not wanting her in your home.
I just she needs, like Shannon says, she needs to know her lane, and I feel like paying her an extra twenty bucks a month.
She's going to branch out and I don't need that. Are you kidding? She's going to be intolerable. Hilarious.
Well, welcome back, Shannon. We haven't chatted in a couple of weeks, so good to hear your boys.
Okay, good to hear your voice as well. Mark, Thank you, thanks as always.
Cheers, guys,