According to Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, the emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in household gadgets is gigantic.
Bezos described the Echo connected speaker and said, “It’s hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years. It is big. It doesn’t mean phones are going to go away or that voice actions will replace screens. As long as people have eyes, they have screens.”
The Echo speaker can turn on lights, access music online and answer queries by waking the speaker by the stating the word Alexa. Amazon hasn’t revealed sales stats but says the product is hard to keep in stock. Bezos said Amazon has 1,000 people working on the Alexa and the Echo. The success of Amazon’s Echo has struck a chord with competitors. Google will release a similar product, Google Home, later this year, and Apple is said to be looking to launch a connected speaker as well.
According to Bezos, “This is the first inning…There is much more to come. We’re the first guys up to bat. We’re on the edge of a golden era.”
