Internally named “Unified Alexa Device Software,” the project is aimed at delivering a “single Alexa Device Software codebase” that will help reduce operational costs and address various performance issues, according to internal documents obtained by BI and people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press.

The team in charge of the project expects to ultimately save almost 50% of its overhead costs, one of the documents says. Once completed, Amazon expects a faster rollout of Alexa features, improved customer experience, and less developer friction, among other benefits.

“While we do recognize that there is an upfront cost to unification, we have seen that taking a 12-24 month investment in unification to reduce our operating costs by almost 50% in the long term is a sound investment,” one of the documents says.

The plan is part of a major revamp of the Alexa business. Alexa and the devices unit were among the first teams hit by Amazon’s layoffs in late 2022 after having lost billions of dollars. The unit has gone through a number of changes since then, including the hiring of the former Microsoft executive Panos Panay as its new leader. More recently, Alexa has been focused on adding ChatGPT-like technology and launching a new paid service, as BI previously reported.

Amazon has been scrutinizing every business unit’s performance lately. More than 27,000 corporate employees have lost jobs since 2022, and multiple projects have been shut down. Earlier this year, Amazon’s Prime Video, Twitch, Audible, and One Medical divisions went through layoffs.

Wall Street has applauded the efficiency drive, which has shown how much potential CEO Andy Jassy had for cost-cutting and how profitable Amazon can be when streamlined. The company’s stock is up 85% in the past year and almost hit a record recently. This has solidified Jassy’s position as CEO after a rocky start taking over from Jeff Bezos.

In an email to BI, an Amazon spokesperson said the change in Alexa’s technology was part of a regular review process.

“We regularly evolve our software architecture to continuously improve Alexa for customers,” the spokesperson said. “That’s what’s happening — to suggest there’s a massive cost-cutting campaign is a gross exaggeration.”

Vega OS

With the unified Alexa backend, Amazon plans to more actively use a new homegrown operating system named Vega for voice assistants, smart TVs, and wearable devices, one of the documents says. Vega is a “new portable operating system for consumer electronics developed by Amazon,” the document explains. Two people told BI that some of the Alexa-powered devices were already using Vega.

At the same time, some of Amazon’s hardware devices will continue to use the existing Fire OS and modified versions of this, the document says. The tech newsletter Lowpass previously reported on some parts of the new Vega OS.

Fire OS is a so-called fork of Android. This happens when companies and coders take the Android open-source system and create a new version that isn’t officially approved by Google. Android forks have been tried many times over the years, with mixed success. That’s partly because unofficial versions of Android don’t come with Google’s app store and other goodies the internet giant controls. This was one reason Amazon’s Fire smartphone failed so spectacularly in 2014.

Eliminating gaps

Alexa’s use of “disparate legacy implementations” has led to “numerous gaps in our software offering,” one of the documents says. That leads to “high-operating cost and maintenance overhead” as well as growing “tech debt,” or poor systems that need to be fixed later. Many devices still come with different feature capabilities, which can cause bad customer experiences, the document says.

With UADS, Amazon expects to roll out Alexa features more quickly while eliminating feature-parity gaps among different devices, the document says. It also anticipates fewer performance issues and lower development costs.

The company hopes the initiative will also reduce the need to hire so many employees. Alexa aims to grow head count for each of its projects to an average of 1.2 times the current team sizes, instead of more than doubling head count under the old approach, the document says.

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Amazon has tried to unify Alexa’s software stack since at least 2016, but failure to do so has only deepened existing problems, the document says. Amazon, at one point, had four different teams supporting the same voice middleware technology across different devices, causing higher operational costs and inefficiencies.

“The idea is we can build and ship the same device on cheaper technology,” one of the people familiar with the matter told BI.

Feature-parity gap

The feature-parity gap between Amazon’s own Alexa devices and third-party voice assistants using Alexa has long been a problem, both internally and externally, according to the people.

They said Amazon’s own devices, such as the Echo, usually got new features ahead of third-party devices, but some employees felt the technology used in Amazon’s devices was much more robust and mature than the tech found in external Alexa-powered gadgets. That has generated negative customer feedback and deteriorating partner relationships.

Some Amazon employees who worked on third-party devices felt as if the Echo was their biggest competitor. “It’s always tough when we get the tech six months later for third-party products,” one of these staffers told BI.

“We also get the price pressure from Amazon selling their own products at cost,” this person added, referring to the company’s strategy of selling consumer hardware at breakeven while trying to make money later on software and services delivered through these gadgets.

The new unified Alexa foundation will significantly reduce these feature parity gaps, the internal documents predict. For example, prior to unifying the backend, one of Alexa’s wake-word-detection features existed only for the Fire OS, so Amazon had to separately build one for the Vega OS, the document says.

Not off Android entirely

With the new Vega OS, Amazon is reducing its reliance on the Android-based Fire OS. But the people told BI the move wasn’t necessarily motivated by ditching Google’s technology. Instead, they said, the goal was simply to be more efficient with resources and to improve performance.

“Android-based devices are going to stick around for a while,” one of the people said.

One area that’s set to see less investment is tablets that come with Alexa capabilities. One of the people said usage of Alexa on tablets was low, given most people just looked at the screen instead of making voice commands. They said Amazon wanted to build a lighter version of Alexa on tablets so fewer resources would be used to support features.

This person added that the same thinking applied to the home robot Astro, given the low level of engagement on that device. Since the number of Astro devices in use is significantly lower than any other Amazon device, the company wants to reduce the level of investment going into enabling Alexa on the home robot.

“It’s also an acknowledgment that Alexa has not scaled the way Amazon had expected it to,” this person said.

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