Amazon plans to charge for Alexa

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01 ... rly-demos/

But from what I understood they play to introduce a premium version, it is not clear what will happen with the “basic” version

[jay (support)]

Yeah, I read that. I hope that it's just a fee for an improved AI (and smarthome control and notifications as they exist now remain free). I'm not sure that I would pay a fee for what I've got now as our household really only uses it for smarthome control and answering simple questions. We could do without the smarthome control (as we have the necessary physical buttons/paddles/switches/etc to do what we do by voice now (even if it's a little more inconvenient). And there's almost always a Siri-capable/listening device near enough to ask simple questions (though, it is less accurate and reliable than answers that Alexa gives IMO).

I would consider a reasonable fee if the AI significantly improved the quality of answers to questions asked.