Amazon eyes ads and upcharges for Alexa Plus
In the week's least surprising news, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that the company is exploring ways to bring ads to Alexa Plus, its new generative-AI-powered voice assistant. During a conference call following the company's second-quarter earnings report, Jassy said that "there will be opportunities, as people are engaging in more multiturn conversations [with Alexa Plus], to have advertising play a role to help people find discovery, and also as a lever to drive revenue."
Basically, people will talk more to Alexa, so there will be more ways to push ads at them. He also hinted that Alexa Plus, which is currently free for Prime members b …