Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sees a possibility to ship adverts to customers throughout their conversations with the corporate’s AI-powered digital assistant, Alexa+, he mentioned throughout Amazon’s second-quarter earnings name Thursday.
“Persons are excited in regards to the units that they’ll purchase from us that has Alexa+ enabled in it. Individuals do a whole lot of purchasing [with Alexa+]; it’s a pleasant purchasing expertise that can preserve getting higher,” mentioned Jassy on the decision with buyers and Wall Avenue analysts. “I believe over time, there can be alternatives, as persons are partaking in additional multi-turn conversations, to have promoting play a job to assist individuals discover discovery, and likewise as a lever to drive income.”
Amazon says it has rolled out Alexa+ to hundreds of thousands of shoppers, a part of an effort to make its legacy digital assistant able to agentic behaviors and extra pure to speak to. Alexa+ is Amazon’s reply to generative AI voice assistants from OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity which have made legacy methods really feel outdated. Nevertheless, the enterprise fashions behind generative AI merchandise stay unclear.
Amazon has made Alexa+ free for Prime prospects (who pay $14.99 a month) and added a $20-a-month subscription tier for Alexa+ by itself. Jassy recommended on Thursday that Alexa+ might finally embody subscription tiers past what’s out there at this time — maybe an ad-free tier.
Up till now, adverts have solely appeared in Alexa in restricted methods. Customers could sometimes see a visible advert on Amazon’s sensible show machine, the Echo Present, or hear a pre-recorded advert in between songs on one in every of Alexa’s sensible audio system.
However Jassy’s description of an AI-generated advert that Alexa+ delivers in a multistep dialog, which might assist customers discover new merchandise, is uncharted territory for Amazon and the broader tech business. Entrepreneurs have expressed curiosity in promoting in AI chatbots, and particularly Alexa+, however precisely how stays unclear.
Amazon’s rivals within the AI house appear to assume promoting is a promising enterprise mannequin for generative AI, too. Google is exploring infuse adverts into its AI-powered search expertise, AI mode. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman mentioned he’s open to a “tasteful” type of promoting in ChatGPT.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
Amazon is spending a fortune to catch up within the AI race. Within the second quarter of 2025, Amazon’s capital expenditures rose to $31.4 billion, up 90% from the identical interval final yr. A big a part of that elevated spending is to develop Amazon’s in-house AI chips and construct out information facilities to assist AI fashions. Whereas the income of Amazon’s cloud enterprise, AWS, grew 18% within the second quarter, the corporate possible must generate new enterprise to pay for these investments.
Jassy is betting that customers will speak to Alexa+ greater than Alexa, which might drive extra promoting and extra purchasing on Amazon.com. Nevertheless, early opinions of Alexa+ have been blended. Amazon has reportedly struggled to ship a few of Alexa+’s extra sophisticated options, and the rollout has been slower than many anticipated.
There’s loads to determine earlier than Amazon places adverts in Alexa+. Like most AI fashions, Alexa+ just isn’t resistant to hallucinations. Earlier than advertisers conform to make Alexa+ a spokesperson for his or her merchandise, Amazon could should give you some methods to make sure that its AI is not going to provide false promoting for a product.
Jassy appears obsessed with making promoting a bigger a part of Amazon enterprise. Amazon’s promoting income went up 22% within the second quarter, in comparison with the identical interval final yr.
Delivering adverts in AI chatbot conversations might also increase privateness issues. Individuals have a tendency to speak extra with AI chatbots in comparison with deterministic assistants, like the standard Alexa and Siri merchandise. In consequence, generative AI chatbots have a tendency to gather extra info on customers. Some customers is perhaps unsettled by having that info offered to advertisers and having adverts seem of their pure language conversations with AI.
