CES 2024: 7 key announcements from Amazon

AWS and Siemens took the CES spotlight as Vice President of Product Matt Wood joined Siemens Global CEO Roland Busch on stage during the opening keynote to share how the two companies are making it easier to access generative AI tools across industries. Siemens is integrating Amazon Bedrock—a service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies via a single API, along with security, privacy, and responsible AI capabilities—with Mendix, the leading low-code platform that is part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. This will allow more customers to build, scale, and supercharge existing applications with the power of generative AI on AWS.

Customers can select the generative AI model that best suits their specific use case and quickly and securely incorporate that model into their applications. This will make software development simpler, faster, and more efficient—allowing users to incorporate generative AI functions in just a few clicks.

Wood shared how AWS’s long-standing relationship with Siemens and the CES announcement offers customers a unique opportunity to benefit from generative AI, and the extensive industry knowledge both companies bring to customers across industries.

Panasonic announced a global collaboration with Amazon to bring Fire TV built in to its new smart TVs starting in 2024. With Fire TV built in and access to Alexa, customers will be able to enjoy a world of entertainment, including live over-the-air content, and streaming apps and services.

Panasonic also unveiled two new flagship OLED smart TVs with Fire TV built in. The Panasonic Z95A and Z93A models will allow customers to easily launch apps, play music, search for titles, and control compatible smart home devices, using far-field voice control with Alexa. When not in use for viewing content, these TVs transform into dynamic displays with the Fire TV Ambient Experience. The Fire TV Ambient Experience turns the biggest screen in your home into a beautiful, always-smart display that can show personal photos, and glanceable information like calendars and reminders through customizable Alexa widgets. Learn more about the collaboration.

Your car is the perfect place for a voice assistant—and Amazon and BMW showcased what’s possible with new Alexa LLM-powered capabilities. These new capabilities provide a more natural way of getting to know your new car and allow it to take select actions on your behalf. Instead of digging through your car manual, you can ask BMW’s assistant for things like recommendations on different BMW drive modes and then have the assistant activate your chosen mode. You can also ask for instructions on how car features work—like the parking assistance system—and hear explanations in easy-to-understand terms through the BMW assistant’s customized voice.

This demo follows Amazon’s previous announcement that BMW’s next-generation Intelligent Personal Assistant will be supported through our Alexa Custom Assistant technology (ACA). Both companies are firm believers that voice technology can strip away complexity and minimize distractions in the car.

Amazon is a long-time supporter of using open technology standards to give customers more choice over the devices and services they use in their homes. That’s also why Amazon is a founding member and key contributor to the Matter Standard. At CES, Amazon announced Matter Casting, which enables customers to cast content to Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices directly from supported streaming apps on iOS and Android. Customers can begin watching a movie or browse for their next favorite show from Prime Video on their phone, and cast it to their compatible Fire TV device or Echo Show 15. This is an industry-first demonstration of implementing Matter Casting.

“We are excited to work with Amazon to bring Matter Casting to the STARZ app. Matter has been easy to integrate and will provide even more options for customers to enjoy our extensive collection of original series and popular films on their device of choice,” said Alison Hoffman, STARZ President of Domestic Networks.

Matter Casting is available now for customers around the world who want to cast Prime Video content from iOS and Android devices to Echo Show 15. It will be coming to compatible Fire TV devices in the coming months, including smart TVs from Panasonic with Fire TV built in. We’re working with Plex, Pluto TV, Sling TV, STARZ, and ZDF to add Matter Casting support later this year.

Following a year of key milestones, including becoming the first company in history to operate a purpose-built robotaxi on public roads with passengers, Zoox showcased the latest generation of its purpose-built vehicle at CES 2024. Zoox also offered an exclusive opportunity to CES attendees to join its early-bird waitlist and be among the first to sign up for its autonomous ride hailing service.

In 2023, we introduced new tools that would make it easier and faster for developers to use generative AI to build conversational experiences with Alexa. Starting today, customers can try some of these new developer-built experiences for themselves.

With Character.ai, Alexa customers can have just-for-fun conversations with different Characters—including getting motivated with fitness coaches, gaining insight from historical figures such as Socrates, receiving book recommendations from Librarian Linda, playing RPGs with Text Adventure Game, and more.

Splash is connecting its AI-powered music creation technology with Alexa. Customers can interact with the Splash experience to create their own song and personalize elements like genre, lyrics, and more—all through voice. From there, customers can send the song they made to their mobile phone.

Voice AI game developer Volley announced the launch of its AI-powered “20 Questions”—a deeper version of the well-known parlor game, which uses generative AI to interact with customers through questions and engaging conversation.

In addition to featuring its own products, Amazon showcased a selection of Alexa Fund portfolio companies at CES. This included MultiOn, a new personal artificial intelligence agent. MultiOn displayed its browser experience, which lets customers use the agent to accomplish tasks such as reserving a table at a restaurant, or inviting your friends to dinner—all on autopilot. Embodied, Inc., a company focused on AI-powered robotics companions, also showed off the evolution of its Moxie Robot—Moxie AI—which will offer children emotional and academic support. It will be available to purchase in 2024.

Alexa Fund invests in technologies and startups that are fueling innovation in areas like artificial intelligence, smart devices and new media.