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Amazon\u2019s plan to launch a paid version of Alexa is part of a strategy change to reverse the over $25 billion in losses that its devices business incurred from 2017 to 2021, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>. The AI-supercharged Alexa, which is rumored to cost up to $10 \/ month<\/a>, could arrive as soon as this month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With a potential launch just weeks away, employees reportedly have doubts about whether the new version of Alexa will catch on. A person who worked on the Alexa team told the WSJ<\/em> that the division is racing toward the deadline to launch the subscription even though \u201cthe technology isn\u2019t there.\u201d Amazon\u2019s former head of devices, David Limp, first revealed Amazon\u2019s plans to charge for an improved version<\/a> of Alexa last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As previously reported by Reuters<\/em>,<\/a> the \u201cmore conversational\u201d Alexa is supposed to come with generative AI features that could allow it to complete multiple tasks in one prompt and learn from users to create routines. But Amazon has reportedly fallen far behind on the project. Last month, a report from Fortune<\/em> suggested<\/a> that Alexa isn\u2019t even close to \u201caccomplishing Amazon\u2019s mission of being \u2018the world\u2019s best personal assistant\u2019\u201d as the team grapples with technical and organizational issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Employees are also concerned about whether people will want to pay for a subscription on top of Amazon\u2019s $139 \/ year Prime membership, the WSJ <\/em>reports. With the base versions of AI assistants \u2014 like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and soon, an improved version of Siri \u2014 not costing anything to use, Amazon might have a hard time charging for Alexa, especially when the existing version of the voice assistant will stay free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n