PRIME DAY: Amazon SUPERCHARGES shopping with Alexa+

[00:00:00]Fox Business Alert, shoppers are gearing up for Amazon Prime Day and Amazon shareholders are too. The e-commerce giant's four-day summer sales event runs from June 23rd through the 26th with roughly 59 million US households expected to shop for deals. Next week's event comes on the heels of Amazon's massive AI overhaul to its virtual assistant Alexa, which has a new name.

[00:00:24]It's called Alexa Plus. One of the new features is Alexa for shopping. It's a personalized AI assistant for shopping on both Amazon's app and for the website. Joining me now in a Fox Business exclusive, Amazon Alexa and Echo Vice President Daniel Rausch.

[00:00:40]Daniel, okay, break the news for our viewers. What else can the new Alexa Plus do?

[00:00:46]>> Well, Alexa Plus can do so much. We actually see customers engaging with Alexa Plus over three times more than they were in the past and that's because of the huge range. So, Alexa can help you in the kitchen cook a recipe, but also shop for you, find the missing ingredients and have them on your doorstep in a jiffy.

[00:01:02]Uh, you know, customers using Alexa for things like ride share, going deeper on a music artist, uh, helping them organize their camera and get things done around the home. We see this huge wide range and there in your lead up you talked about shopping, which we're so glad able to help customers this Prime Day with all of the deals and the range of deals we have.

[00:01:19]>> Can you give me an example of something that you now use Alexa Plus for that you didn't before and what it can do?

[00:01:28]>> I mean, just today actually I've used it for a huge range of new features. Uh, uh, before this broadcast I was looking for a new Garmin watch. I'm a jogger and uh, I want a new Forerunner 165. I don't know if it's going to be on special, uh, during Prime Day here, but I set a deal alert with Alexa. I said, "If it falls below 199, go ahead and just buy it for me." Uh, and Alexa has that set and when Prime Day comes, I won't have to refresh a page or search around the website for a deal on that watch. It'll just happen if it falls below the price that I'm willing to pay. Uh before that, actually, last night I had Alexa create a podcast for me uh summarizing what's been going on in the Middle East. I knew that there's going to be some news today about the deal uh that's happened in the Middle East, and I wanted kind of a summary and and a review. And on on my way to work this morning, I listened to a 15-minute podcast about what's happened over the last few few months in the Middle East.

[00:02:18]So, Alexa can do this huge wide range of things and and help customers really every day in their lives.

[00:02:22]>> Well, see, that is value added.

[00:02:25]There's so many things where you know, you read the manual of the car you know, it's like 58,000 pages, and you don't read it cuz there's stuff that you don't really need that it does. It feels like you guys have been very mindful about adding things that can make a huge difference. I will say that back in February, we we talked about it.

[00:02:42]Alexa Bliss was finally made available to the US after it launched last year through an early access preview. What was the driving force behind this massive AI overhaul?

[00:02:53]>> I mean, I think our vision for Alexa's been super consistent over time. We want to make customers' lives a bit easier every day. And you know, the this age of generative AI we're in just lets us build the Alexa experience we've always wanted to with Alexa Plus. So, whether that's helping keep the family organized and everything on track around the house, whether that's helping you plan your next adventure or trip, or you know, I used Alexa recently to help me get some concert tickets nearby. And I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan, and he was coming through at the ripe age of 85. And uh and I had her watch for when tickets dropped so I could catch him uh here over the summer. So, it's really just helping customers in their everyday lives, helping them get, you know, these kind of things done more efficiently, more effectively, faster, and a little bit easier.

[00:03:34]>> Okay, so just this morning, I know it was rolled out in Brazil. It's It's here now. Will expand to more than what, 10 additional countries? Where else will it be available?

[00:03:44]>> Uh Alexa will be available everywhere that Alexa's available today. So, we are now all over Europe. Uh we are everywhere in North America, Canada, and Mexico. We started expanding into South America with our launch in Brazil this morning and you know, what what it means is curating a specific Alexa experience that is relevant for each customer everywhere.

[00:04:03]So in the US, you know, we we help with Ticketmaster to find those tickets I mentioned earlier. In Brazil, it's Fever Up. That's a completely different company, different integration. So we really curate the set of partners that Alexa can work with to get things done and we we curate the experience kind of one country at a time. So Alexa knows that a you know, your car trunk is called a bonnet in the UK when we launch there. It has all those colloquialisms and expressions available so customers can speak naturally wherever they are.

[00:04:30]>> Okay, so it's the loo, not the bathroom in in Europe.

[00:04:33]>> That's right.

[00:04:34]That's right.

[00:04:35]>> One thing is prices. People are hit hard by inflation. The CPI, the Consumer Price Index for May came in at 4.2%.

[00:04:43]That's pretty far from the 2% you know, target that the Fed really wants. That was talked about yesterday during the Fed meeting.

[00:04:50]So I have two Dots, but I got them several years ago. I do not want to spend money buying brand new hardware.

[00:04:57]Can it be Can it automatically update so I don't have to get a new Alexa Dot, but it can turn into Alexa Plus?

[00:05:05]>> Yeah, a few things there. First, we support with Alexa Plus devices up to 8 years old. I mean, if you imagine trying to run the the software on your phone that you carry around every day, you know, if you carried your phone from 8 years ago and tried to put today's operating system on it, it wouldn't even be possible to download and install it, but we're really proud of the hard work of the team to get Alexa Plus working on devices up to 8 years old, but I'd also offer Liz, I think you know, Prime Day is a great opportunity to get one of those new Dots. We're going to be up to 40% off on our latest generation of hardware that's purpose-built for Alexa Plus. So part of our proposition is also just to create great value for customers and moments like Prime Day are a great time to shop for our newest devices.

[00:05:46]>> I'm I'm trying to be frugal, Daniel. So, I'll I'll I'll do the upgrade. And really quickly because this came into my mind when you mentioned that you had it put together a podcast. Do you think that Alexa will eventually make human podcast? Cuz I've got a podcast. Do you think it'll make them obsolete? Is it going to be that good?

[00:06:06]>> Not at all. I mean, I think, you know, there's still Look, look how creative you are. Look how much you fit into your show. I mean, I'm a huge fan of your program. And I think that, you know, there's a time and place for for AI. And Alexa does a great job, you know, summarizing, you know, the news of the day for me. But, I think it's going to be really hard to replace Liz. So, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[00:06:25]>> [laughter] >> There's a tub of butter. You're buttering me up. Daniel, great to see you. Thank you very much. And we're watching the stock. It happens to be up today. It's had a pretty good quarter.

[00:06:36]We appreciate you coming on. Thank you.

[00:06:38]>> We'll take it. And thanks a lot for having me.