Celebrity votes are disappearing Amazon’s Alexa including the widespread voices of Shaquille O’Neal, Melissa McCarthyand Samuel L Jackson. Amazon launched the feature in 2019 with Jackson, offering consumers the ability to download the actor’s voice for just 0.99 cents, but recently increased the cost to $4.99.
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The company initially told consumers it would remove Jackson’s voice in December, but will be able to continue using the feature until June 7, 2023. An official notice on Amazon’s purchase page for Jackson’s voice reads that it “is no longer available for purchase.” Customers who previously purchased the experience can continue using the skill through April 2023 by saying “Hey Samuel.” Customers who purchased the voices of McCarthy and O’Neal will be notified that time is running out, four months before she officially becomes unavailable on September 30, 2023.
Although Amazon does not automatically issue a refund to consumers who purchased the voice, a spokesperson said in an email to Gizmodo, “After three years, we are discontinuing the celebrity voices. Customers can continue to use these voices for a limited time and contact our customer service for a refund.”
Amazon will continue to offer a variety of language options, including American, Australian, British, Canadian and Indian voices, the company said in an email, but didn’t provide any further information on why it decided to remove the celebrity voice feature .
The company has cut spending in recent months since Andy Jassy took over as CEO in July last year. He initially criticized some of Amazon’s investments, including its Alexa product, saying the company had suffered $5 million in operating losses in recent years as a result. Amazon was also among the many big tech companies to conduct mass layoffs Earlier this year, 18,000 employees were affected, according to Amazon hardware boss Dave Limp CNBC that nearly 2,000 of those laid off were part of the Alexa and Echo product line.
“We try to sell our products around breakeven, sometimes a little more,” Limp told the outlet at the time. “Then when customers use them, they say they’re shopping through their Alexa, which benefits the whole of Amazon and gives the customer a great shopping experience, and that’s how we want to monetize those things in the future.”
Leaked documents show the company may be considering ChatGPT and other AI to support its voice feature. Business Insider reported. The previous language option for celebrities with Jackson, McCarthy and O’Neal was limited to simple information requests like shopping lists, reminders or skills, but the use of AI chatbots could expand the results to video and audio, according to the documents.
It’s still unclear if Amazon will officially integrate AI into its Alexa, but Jassy said during a result call Last week, the company announced it was building a “much larger, more general, and more powerful” LLM (Large Language Model) under Alexa. “I think this will really accelerate our vision of becoming the best personal assistant in the world,” Jassy said during the call. “I think there’s an important business model behind it.”
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