From Bloomberg:
Amazon.com Inc. is embracing artificial intelligence to deliver goods more quickly, enhance its voice-activated Alexa assistant and create new tools sold to others through its cloud-computing division, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said in his annual shareholder letter.
Changes ushered in by artificial intelligence and machine learning will help the companies that embrace them and put up barriers for those who don’t, the world’s second-richest man wrote in a 1,700-word letter released Wednesday.
. . . .
“But much of what we do with machine learning happens beneath the surface,” [Bezos] wrote. “Machine learning drives our algorithms for demand forecasting, product search ranking, product and deals recommendations, merchandising placements, fraud detection, translations, and much more. Though less visible, much of the impact of machine learning will be of this type — quietly but meaningfully improving core operations.”
Link to the rest at Bloomberg
Amazon is making significant efforts to get Echo owners to order via Alexa. This week the offer I jumped on was “buy a $25 an Amazon gift card, get a $5 code to use on your nest Amazon purchase”. So far, I’ve made three orders with the Echo but it always involved my going to the product page and making the decision there. I don’t think that’s what Amazon wants. They want ordering by voice to be a natural impulse, by-passing the computer.