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Amazon’s Alexa gets new generative AI-powered experiences

Among the slew of CES announcements this week, it should be no surprise to anyone that generative AI is a major theme from tech companies this year, AI companies Character.AI, Splash and Volley partner with Amazon to deliver new experiences for Alexa users.

Character.AI ’s new experience enables Alexa users to have real-time conversations with different personas, such as a fictional character called Librarian Linda, a personal trainer or even pretend versions of celebrities and historical figures like Elon Musk, Socrates and William Shakespeare, among others. Amazon has made many AI-related enhancements to Alexa in recent months, including a new generative AI model to give the virtual assistant a more opinionated personality and the ability to adjust its tone and response to express human emotions like excitement or surprise. The tech giant also released a kids-focused feature on Echo devices called “Explore with Alexa,” where Amazon Kids+ subscribers can have kid-friendly conversations, learn fun facts and answer trivia questions.

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