While companies like OpenAI, Google, and several others continue to build on their generative AI chops, e-commerce juggernaut Amazon has been left behind to a great extent. While Amazon has no doubt worked behind the scenes to gain some parity with the rest of the tech industry, the retailer’s shopping-centric Rufus AI chatbot only arrived earlier this year, indicating that the company is largely behind. However, 2024 could be the year when that changes, at least according to new reporting by Reuters.

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The publication spoke to eight former and current Amazon employees (anonymously) who divulged some details about this secretive AI project known within the company as “Banyan.” Reuters reiterates that Amazon will brand this new AI-enhanced version of Alexa as “Remarkable Alexa,” replacing what Amazon refers to as “Classic Alexa,” the version that’s currently available. It’s worth noting that Business Insider was the first to report on some of these developments earlier this year, with Reuter’s report shedding light on prospective pricing for this paid version of Alexa, and some other key details.

Amazon will reportedly offer two tiers of this upgraded Alexa, including a free-to-use option and a subscriber-only tier costing around $5 to $10. Expectedly, the paid version will have more generative AI features than the free version of Remarkable Alexa.

Some of the capabilities of this subscription-based Remarkable Alexa include the ability to draft an email and order food through a delivery service like Uber Eats or Grubhub with a single command/prompt, the anonymous sources told Reuters. Perhaps more importantly, users won’t be required to say/activate Alexa multiple times during a conversation with this upgraded AI version of Alexa.

The report also adds that Amazon won’t bundle this paid version of Alexa with its current Prime subscription, which already comes with a ton of benefits. So even if you pay $139/year or $15/month for Prime, you will have to shell out an additional $5 or $10 per month to access this generative AI-powered Alexa.

Alexa Routines could get an upgrade, too

In addition to some of these upgrades, Reuters’ sources claim that Alexa’s home automation capabilities could also get a big boost. While Alexa Routines can already perform plenty of actions based on user commands, Remarkable Alexa could potentially learn from the user’s patterns and perform some actions on its own. However, the sources told Reuters that some of these enhanced automation features may require users to purchase additional Alexa-compatible hardware.

The year 2024 is reportedly being termed as a “must-win” for Alexa, given how far behind Amazon’s service is compared to alternatives like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. Amazon’s overall goal with Remarkable Alexa is to help users find products relevant to their queries, like when you’re going on a summer trip and need recommendations on what clothes to buy. With this generative AI push, Amazon would also hope to finally turn a decent profit out of Alexa.

While Amazon didn’t directly confirm this development, a spokesperson told Reuters that the company has “already integrated generative AI into different components of Alexa” and is currently working on scaling up these capabilities. Meanwhile, Amazon has reportedly given its employees a deadline of August 2024 to get Remarkable Alexa ready, so we don’t have much longer to wait.