News from the AI & ML world
DeeperML - #amazonai
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@learn.aisingapore.org
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Amazon is expanding its AI capabilities, focusing on both customer-facing and internal operational improvements. A key development is the enhanced Amazon Q Business, a generative AI-powered assistant now supporting anonymous user access. This feature allows businesses to create public-facing applications, such as Q&A sections on websites, documentation portals, and self-service customer support, without requiring user authentication. This provides guest users with AI-driven assistance to quickly find product information, navigate documentation, and troubleshoot issues.
The anonymous Amazon Q Business applications can be integrated into websites using either an embedded web experience via an iframe or through customized interfaces built with Chat, ChatSync, and PutFeedback APIs. Amazon offers a consumption-based pricing model for these anonymous applications, charging based on the number of Chat or ChatSync API operations. This allows businesses to offer powerful AI assistance to a wider audience while maintaining control over costs and deployment. In addition to AI-powered customer service, Amazon is also enhancing its warehouse operations with the introduction of the Vulcan robot. Equipped with gripping pincers, built-in conveyor belts, and a pointed probe, Vulcan is designed to handle 75% of the package types in Amazon's fulfillment centers. This robot represents a significant advancement in robotics, as it can "feel" objects, enabling it to handle a variety of items with the necessary strength and agility. Amazon says this "touch" capability is a fundamental leap forward, differentiating Vulcan from previous robots that lacked the ability to sense contact. Recommended read:
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Evan Ackerman@IEEE Spectrum
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Amazon has unveiled Vulcan, an AI-powered robot with a sense of touch, designed for use in its fulfillment centers. This groundbreaking robot represents a "fundamental leap forward in robotics," according to Amazon's director of applied science, Aaron Parness. Vulcan is equipped with sensors that allow it to "feel" the objects it is handling, enabling capabilities previously unattainable for Amazon robots. This sense of touch allows Vulcan to manipulate objects with greater dexterity and avoid damaging them or other items nearby.
Vulcan operates using "end of arm tooling" that includes force feedback sensors. These sensors enable the robot to understand how hard it is pushing or holding an object, ensuring it remains below the damage threshold. Amazon says that Vulcan can easily manipulate objects to make room for whatever it’s stowing, because it knows when it makes contact and how much force it’s applying. Vulcan helps to bridge the gap between humans and robots, bringing greater dexterity to the devices. The introduction of Vulcan addresses a significant challenge in Amazon's fulfillment centers, where the company handles a vast number of stock-keeping units (SKUs). While robots already play a crucial role in completing 75% of Amazon orders, Vulcan fills the ability gap of previous generations of robots. According to Amazon, one business per second is adopting AI, and Vulcan demonstrates the potential for AI and robotics to revolutionize warehouse operations. Amazon did not specify how many jobs the Vulcan model may create or displace. Recommended read:
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mike@marketingaiinstitute.com (Mike@marketingaiinstitute.com
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AWS News Blog
, Bernard Marr
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Amazon is aggressively pursuing advancements in artificial intelligence, marking a significant push into the AI agent arena. The company has unveiled Nova Act, an AI system designed to control web browsers and autonomously perform tasks such as booking reservations, ordering food, and filling out forms. This new AI has the potential to streamline and automate various online activities, reducing the need for human intervention. The integration of Nova Act into the upcoming Alexa+ upgrade could put this powerful AI agent into the hands of millions of users worldwide.
Amazon is also introducing Nova Sonic, a new foundation model aimed at creating human-like voice conversations for generative AI applications. Nova Sonic unifies speech recognition and generation into a single model. It enables developers to create natural, conversational AI experiences. This integrated approach streamlines development and reduces complexity when building voice-enabled applications. The model delivers expressive speech generation and real-time text transcription without requiring a separate model. These advancements reflect Amazon's commitment to investing in AI for future growth. CEO Andy Jassy highlighted the importance of aggressive AI investments in a recent shareholder letter, noting plans to spend over $100 billion on capital expenditure in 2025. He described AI as a "once-in-a-lifetime reinvention of everything we know". The move towards agentic AI, as demonstrated by Nova Act and Nova Sonic, is expected to revolutionize various aspects of customer experiences and workplace productivity. Recommended read:
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Danilo Poccia@AWS News Blog
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AWS News Blog
, AI News | VentureBeat
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Amazon has unveiled Nova Sonic, a new foundation model available on Amazon Bedrock, aimed at revolutionizing voice interactions within generative AI applications. This unified model streamlines the development of speech-enabled applications by integrating speech recognition and generation into a single system. This eliminates the traditional need for multiple fragmented models, reducing complexity and enhancing the naturalness of conversations. Nova Sonic seeks to provide more human-like interactions by understanding contextual nuances, tone, prosody, and speaking style.
Amazon Nova Sonic powers Alexa+ and is already incorporated into Alexa+, Amazon’s upgraded voice assistant. Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s head of AI, explained that Nova Sonic is good at deciding when to pull information from the internet or other apps. For example, if you ask about the weather, it checks a weather website. If you want to order groceries, it connects to your shopping list. This integrated approach reduces complexity when building conversational applications and delivers expressive speech generation and real-time text transcription without requiring a separate model, resulting in adaptive speech responses. The model is designed to recognize when users pause, hesitate, or even interrupt, responding fluidly to mimic natural human conversation. Developers can leverage function calling and agentic workflows to connect Nova Sonic with external services and APIs. The model currently supports American and British English, with plans to add more languages soon. This commitment to responsible AI also includes built-in protections for content moderation and watermarking. Amazon claims that the new model is 80% cheaper to use than OpenAI’s GPT-4o and also faster. Recommended read:
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Danilo Poccia@AWS News Blog
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Amazon has unveiled Nova Sonic, a new foundation model available on Amazon Bedrock, aimed at revolutionizing voice interactions within generative AI applications. This unified model streamlines the development of speech-enabled applications by integrating speech recognition and generation into a single system. This eliminates the traditional need for multiple fragmented models, reducing complexity and enhancing the naturalness of conversations. Nova Sonic seeks to provide more human-like interactions by understanding contextual nuances, tone, prosody, and speaking style.
Amazon Nova Sonic powers Alexa+ and is already incorporated into Alexa+, Amazon’s upgraded voice assistant. Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s head of AI, explained that Nova Sonic is good at deciding when to pull information from the internet or other apps. For example, if you ask about the weather, it checks a weather website. If you want to order groceries, it connects to your shopping list. This integrated approach reduces complexity when building conversational applications and delivers expressive speech generation and real-time text transcription without requiring a separate model, resulting in adaptive speech responses. The model is designed to recognize when users pause, hesitate, or even interrupt, responding fluidly to mimic natural human conversation. Developers can leverage function calling and agentic workflows to connect Nova Sonic with external services and APIs. The model currently supports American and British English, with plans to add more languages soon. This commitment to responsible AI also includes built-in protections for content moderation and watermarking. Amazon claims that the new model is 80% cheaper to use than OpenAI’s GPT-4o and also faster. Recommended read:
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Nishant N@MarkTechPost
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Amazon has unveiled Nova Act, a new AI agent designed to interact with web browsers and automate tasks. Released as a research preview, the Nova Act SDK allows developers to create AI agents capable of automating tasks such as filling out forms, navigating web pages, and managing workflows. U.S.-based users can access the SDK through the nova.amazon.com platform.
Nova Act distinguishes itself by focusing on reliability in completing complex, multi-step tasks by breaking down workflows into atomic commands and integrating with tools like Playwright for direct browser manipulation. Developers can enhance functionality further by interleaving Python code. Early benchmarks suggest Nova Act outperforms competitors like OpenAI’s CUA and Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet on specific web interaction tasks, demonstrating Amazon’s commitment to advancing agentic AI. Recommended read:
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Andrew Liszewski@The Verge
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Amazon has announced Alexa+, a new, LLM-powered version of its popular voice assistant. This upgraded version will cost $19.99 per month, but will be included at no extra cost for Amazon Prime subscribers. Alexa+ boasts enhanced AI agent capabilities, enabling users to perform tasks like booking Ubers, creating study plans, and sending texts via voice command. These new features are intended to provide a more seamless and natural conversational experience. Early access to Alexa+ will begin in late March 2025 for customers with eligible Echo Show devices in the United States.
Amazon emphasizes that Alexa+ utilizes a "model agnostic" system, drawing on Amazon Bedrock and employing various AI models, including Amazon Nova and those from Anthropic, to optimize performance. This approach allows Alexa+ to choose the best model for each task, leveraging specialized "experts" for orchestrating services. With seamless integration into tens of thousands of devices and services, including news sources like Time, Reuters, and the Associated Press, Alexa+ provides accurate and real-time information. Recommended read:
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