When Astro was unveiled, one of its developers anonymously described the device as a “privacy nightmare”. Unsurprisingly, Limp is more upbeat.
“It becomes pet-like”, the 55-year-old enthuses. “We have two dogs and it’s not all the way on the spectrum to a pet, but it’s closer to that than my mobile phone [is].”
Amazon has so far shipped a few hundred to customers who signed up for a waitlist. Within a decade, however, it says every home will have a robot that becomes a part of everyday life.
To more sceptical onlookers, the droid might be seen as a gimmick to rekindle stalling interest in Alexa.
First unveiled in 2014, Amazon’s voice assistant – capable of playing music, controlling houses and searching for information – has become a daily companion for some and a dystopic symbol of surveillance for others.
It has received marriage proposals and been accused of killing regional accents.
More than 100m Alexa-equipped devices had been sold by 2019, according to Amazon – a number that is since believed to have more than doubled, with the pandemic prompting more people to kit out their smart homes.
But it was recently claimed that desire was slowing, with the technology past its “growth phase” and many purchasers losing interest within a week.
Limp rejects this. “We have more monthly active Alexa users than ever before,” he says. “It continues to grow both in the US and internationally. People interact with it billions of times a week, I know that because I get my AWS [cloud computing] bill every month.”
But Limp is bound to be protective of Alexa, having been there at its inception.
After stints at Apple, Palm, a personal digital assistant maker, and venture capital company Azure, he joined Amazon’s hardware team in 2010. Andy Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos as chief executive last year, was among those who interviewed him.
Like so many things at Amazon, the idea for Alexa began with a two-sentence email from Bezos, its billionaire founder. “He said, ‘Let’s build a very small device that’s super simple, very low cost, with a voice chip and intelligence in the cloud,’” Limp says.
That was easier in theory than practice.
Prototypes would typically fail to recognise voices in noisy environments, such as with the TV or dishwasher running, according to Limp, and would often wake up without request.
“I had one for two years in the bedroom at my house. That put a strain on the relationship because this thing would go off in the middle of the night.”
Any idea with Bezos’ backing, however, gets the time and money it needs: Amazon currently has more than 10,000 employees working on Alexa.
And despite Bezos relinquishing his role at the helm last summer to become chairman, Limp says the two still talk weekly. They last spoke on the phone about the company’s satellite internet project, Kuiper, which falls under Limp’s remit.
“I’m happiest when I get to live in the future and he’s always said that too. The projects where he’s spending time with me and the team is where he can live in the future,” he says.
Bezos’s replacement, Jassy, is seen as a different quantity: less excited about expensive tech projects. But the changing of the guard “doesn’t feel that different”, according to Limp, except that Jassy, a sports fanatic, is pushing him to improve the way Alexa answers questions about recent matches. Bezos, in contrast, demonstrated little interest in sports.
What remains an open question is whether Alexa has been a financial success. Amazon’s Echo devices are sold at low margins, as are services such as its audiobooks and music subscriptions.
