An Inside Look at What Alexa Can Now Do with AI | Daniel Rausch
Alexa can now do much more than play music and set alarms. Plus why it took so long to add AI to Alexa and how to apply Amazon's PRFAQ process to build AI products
Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share a new episode with Daniel Rausch.
As VP of Alexa, Daniel is adding AI to 600M Alexa devices. He had a great answer to my tough question: “Why has it taken so long for Alexa to get AI?” and then gave a live demo of what an AI-powered Alexa looks like. We also had a great chat about how to apply Amazon’s PRFAQ process and “invent and simplify” principle to build useful AI products.
Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Daniel and I talked about:
(00:00) Why adding generative AI to Alexa took so long
(03:21) Live demo: Alexa uses AI to find Warriors tickets under $100
(09:21) The top AI models powering the new Alexa
(11:50) Amazon’s working backwards process explained
(22:04) How to figure out your product’s one thing (and cut everything else)
(23:00) Why Amazon pairs “invent” and “simplify” as a single principle
(24:34) My top request for Alexa (it has to do with Kpop Demon Hunters)
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Top 10 takeaways I learned from this episode
Alexa Plus handles multi-step workflows through tool calling and RAG. Daniel’s demo showed Alexa searching Warriors scores, finding tonight’s game time, checking Ticketmaster for seats under $100, offering to watch for price drops. “This involved tool calling, searches, retrieval augmented generation... with tons of services and APIs on the back end.”
The PRFAQ prevents wasting months building the wrong thing. “So much time is wasting building something products don’t want.” Writing the future press release forces you to define the customer value upfront and the FAQ reveals feasibility gaps early. Here’s a link to Amazon’s complete PRFAQ template: