Amazon announced a new Fire TV partnership with Panasonic, in-car generative AI with BMW, Matter Casting support for Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices, and more.
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The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has kicked off once again in Las Vegas—giving companies a chance to showcase their newest products and innovations to visitors from across the world. CES 2024 is another busy one for Amazon—with a newly-announced global partnership with Panasonic, a live demonstration of in-vehicle generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with BMW, support for Matter Casting for Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices, the latest generation of the Zoox robotaxi on display, and Siemens’ integration of AWS generative AI technology, Amazon Bedrock.
Here’s a look at this year’s announcements and on-site demonstrations.
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.
A new partnership with Fire TV and Panasonic
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 your car with the large language model (LLM)-powered BMW car expert
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.
Matter Casting on Fire TV and Echo Show 15
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.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Siemens bring generative AI to the CES stage and industries worldwide
“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.
Latest generation of Zoox’s purpose-built robotaxi with an exclusive early-bird waitlist
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.
New generative AI-powered Alexa experiences from developers
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.