After years of delays, Amazon finally unveiled Alexa+ at the end of February. This is a major evolution of Alexa itself, giving the assistant unprecedented conversational capabilities thanks to the contribution of generative AI. This new generation will be launched on March 28 on existing Echo devices, only in the United States and initially only in English.
But to fully utilize these new capabilities, Amazon warns: you will need to accept the sending of voice requests to the group's servers. Until now, devices can process requests locally, avoiding sharing audio data with Amazon.
"As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features powered by the computing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature," the company explained in an email sent to those who have enabled the option "Do not send voice recordings".
The option remains available, however, but in this case, refusing to record requests will prevent the use of Voice ID: users will lose the benefits of this feature, central to both Alexa and Alexa+. It gives the assistant the ability to recognize the voice of the person you're talking to, in order to return personalized responses, give them upcoming appointments, start playing their favorite songs, or even alert them about upcoming reminders.
This is one of the most highlighted functions by Amazon. Those who are not interested in the new assistant but still want to keep "classic" Alexa, or those who simply want to use Alexa+ without the voice recognition function, will still have to share their voice recordings with Amazon. At the risk of losing many useful features.
Amazon, however, tries to reassure people by explaining that voice requests will be deleted after processing, and that transfers are secure. The problem is that the company has a terrible reputation when it comes to privacy. It has already been involved in several controversies related to the management of voice recordings, including the extended retention of interactions with children (for which the e-commerce giant settled a $25 million fine in 2023) and employee access to this data.
It is now up to Amazon to prove that voice queries will actually be deleted... and, even more so, that they will never be used for ill-advised.
Source: ArsTechnica
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