Alexa+ launches on web to challenge ChatGPT and Claude

Together with

Welcome Humans🤖,

Here is what we have Today:

• 🎤 OpenAI's secret device: Voice-first AI coming 2026

• 🤖 Amazon's Alexa invades your browser

• 💼 Project AVA brings Grok-powered holographic assistant to life.

• ⚡ Vera Rubin arrives early with 1,152 GPUs.

• 💼 New Job Opportunities

Amazon

Amazon just brought Alexa+ to the web

Alexa is no longer trapped inside smart speakers.
Amazon just launched Alexa.com, a browser-based home for its newly upgraded Alexa+, putting it head-to-head with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok — right in the chatbot arena.

🖥️ Alexa, Now in Your Browser

• 🌍 Early Access users can use Alexa+ on any browser

• ✍️ Built for research, writing, and planning

• 📱 First time Alexa works beyond Amazon devices

This is Alexa’s biggest expansion yet.

🤝 Alexa Gets More “Agentic”

Alexa+ isn’t just chatting — it’s doing.

• ✈️ Expedia for travel

• ⭐ Yelp for discovery

• 🛠️ Angi for home services

• 💳 Square for payments

• 🚗 Uber & 🍽️ OpenTable already onboard

Reservations, services, and tasks — handled end to end.

📈 Users Are Hooked

Amazon says usage is surging:

• 🛒 Shopping and 🍳 cooking with Alexa are up 3–5×

• 💬 Conversations are longer, deeper, and more frequent

• 🔁 Alexa is becoming a daily assistant, not a novelty

📱 Mobile Gets a Makeover

The Alexa app is getting a chatbot-first redesign.

No more digging through menus.
Conversation is now the main feature, front and center.

🤔 Why This Matters

Amazon’s move is… complicated.

• 💰 The company has invested billions in Anthropic (Claude)

• 🧠 Yet it’s pushing Alexa+ into the same chatbot space

But here’s the twist 👇
Alexa already lives inside one of the few AI-powered devices people actually use daily.

That distribution advantage? Massive.

Full Story - Amazon Turns Alexa into a Full-Blown AI Chatbot

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Explore the awards, research, and momentum behind this shift in our Media Kit.

Explore media kit

OpenAI

🎙️ OpenAI Is Rebuilding Its Voice

A new device is quietly taking shape.

OpenAI is reworking its audio AI from the ground up.
According to The Information, multiple internal teams have been merged to fix lagging voice performance — all ahead of a voice-first personal device led by Jony Ive, expected in about a year.

🔧 What Triggered the Overhaul?

• 🗣️ OpenAI’s voice models lag behind ChatGPT text in speed and accuracy

• ⚠️ Internal bottlenecks pushed the company to consolidate teams

• 🎯 Goal: make voice feel as smart, fast, and natural as text

🧠 What’s Coming Next?

• ⏭️ A new audio model in Q1 2026

• 🗨️ Users will be able to interrupt the AI mid-response — no awkward resets

• 🎵 Conversations flow more like real human dialogue

📦 The Device (What We Know So Far)

• 🕶️ Voice-first, screens optional

• 🔊 Concepts include smart glasses and a speaker-style device

• ⏳ Launch still about one year away

🎨 Jony Ive’s Role

• 🏗️ Hardware led by io, Ive’s design firm

• 💰 Acquired by OpenAI for ~$6.5B in May

• 🧘 Explicit mission: avoid smartphone-style addiction

🌍 Why It Matters

OpenAI’s hardware ambitions are no secret — but the form factor reveal in 2026 could be a defining moment.
With Ive’s design pedigree and a renewed focus on voice, OpenAI is betting it can succeed where many AI wearables have failed.

Full story — OpenAI Rebuilds Its Voice Ahead of a Mystery Device

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Trending Today

• SF Weekly Pulse: China's New technological stealth aircraft that uses enemy's radar to harness power

• Nvidia unveiled its new Vera Rubin AI supercomputing platform at CES, with CEO Jensen Huang saying it delivers five times more compute than the previous generation and will arrive earlier than planned. Vera Rubin combines six chip types and 1,152 GPUs across 16 server racks, designed to lower training time and inference costs.

• Stanford Researchers have released SleepFM, a new AI model that can predict more than 130 health conditions using data from a single night of sleep. The model was trained on 600,000 hours of sleep recordings from 65,000 people, analyzing brain activity, heart rate, breathing, and muscle movement. When these signals fall out of sync, SleepFM flags potential health risks years in advance.

• Razer showcased Project AVA: a 5.5-inch holographic companion that sits on your desk. Powered by xAI’s Grok, the avatar can help you with everything from planning your schedule to beating video game levels. Razer also announced Project Motoko, a headset concept that delivers AI assistance through audio, rather than smart glasses. Both projects are part of Razer's $600 million push into AI.

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