Amazon's Panos Panay: The Reality of Building Alexa Plus and AI Assistants
Panos Panay is Amazon’s head of Devices & Services. Panay returns to Big Technology Podcast to discuss Alexa Plus's delayed rollout, when the assistant is releasing to everyone, and the challenge of building these products. Tune in for specifics on compatibility, usage spikes, and what “day one” means when you have hundreds of millions of customers. We also cover the future of computing, from phones to wearables and home devices. Hit play for a grounded look at what’s real now—and what’s coming next.
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How Amazon Rebuilt Alexa From The Ground Up — With Panos Panay and Daniel Rausch
Panos Panay is the senior vice president of Devices & Services at Amazon. Daniel Rausch is the Vice President of Alexa at Amazon. The two join Big Technology Podcast to discuss how the company rearchitected Alexa, blending a deterministic system with the latest generative AI technology to create something that can both turn your lights off and speak with you about philosophy. We also discuss how all big tech companies seem to be converging on the same contextually aware, general AI assistant, and why Amazon believes Alexa has a chance to win. Tune in for a front row perspective on one of the tech industry's biggest AI projects.
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Amazon’s Panos Panay on the long road to Alexa’s AI overhaul
Panos Panay is in charge of devices and services at Amazon — that's everything from Alexa and Kindle to Ring, Eero, and even the Project Kuiper satellite internet service that's meant to compete with Starlink.
He's led the team through giving Alexa a big AI infusion which is what drew him to Amazon after nearly 20 years with Microsoft. Like so many folks in tech, he sees AI as a platform shift that will change the way we use computers.
Fair warning: We talk about Alexa a lot in this one, so you might want to go mute your Alexa device mics now.
Links:
With Alexa Plus, Amazon finally reinvents its best product | Verge
The future of the Kindle with Panos Panay | Vergecast
Amazon announces AI-powered Alexa Plus | Verge
All of the announcements from Amazon’s Alexa Plus event | Verge
Alexa Plus arrives with promise but plenty of questions | Verge
Amazon Leadership Principles | Amazon
How Amazon runs Alexa, with Dave Limp (2021) | Decoder
Alexa loses her voice | YouTube
Humane is shutting down the AI pin | Verge
Mike Krieger wants to build AI products that are worth the hype | Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/621232
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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The future of the Kindle with Panos Panay
Nilay and David talk about the week in gadget news, after scoring their predictions on last week's Tesla event. (Spoiler alert: nobody did very well.) They talk about the new iPad Mini, the new Sonos Ace Ultra soundbar, and the new Analogue N64 emulator. Then Amazon's Panos Panay joins the show to discuss this week's big Kindle news, and where he thinks the future of e-readers is headed. Finally, Nilay and David do a lightning round, with a lot of Google org chart news and just a little bit of Trump news.
Further reading:
The Optimus robots at Tesla’s Cybercab event were humans in disguise
The Tesla Cybercab is a cool-looking prototype that needed to be much more than that
Tesla’s Robovan is the surprise of the night
Apple just announced a new, faster iPad Mini
AMD and Intel are teaming up to fend off ARM chips
Sonos announces ‘breakthrough’ Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4
Analogue’s 4K Nintendo 64 launches next year for $249
Amazon’s new Kindle family includes the first color Kindle
Amazon’s Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition hands-on: color E Ink looks pretty good
Amazon Kindle Scribe 2024: a new design and AI tools for note takers
Amazon’s new Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite are faster and brighter
Amazon discontinues the last Kindle with physical buttons
Google is replacing the exec in charge of Search and ads
Here’s a bunch of bananas shit Trump said today about breaking up Google
Trump says Tim Cook called him to complain about the European Union
Anthropic’s CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia — he just needs a few billion dollars first
The New York Times warns AI search engine Perplexity to stop using its content
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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The Surface Duo w/ Microsoft CPO Panos Panay & LG's Unique New Swivel Phone
Microsoft Chief Product Officer, Panos Panay, joins us to give a behind the scenes look into the development of the Microsoft Surface Duo, all the way back to literal brain scans. We also discuss Andrew's favorite new gaming mouse, as well as LG's crazy new swiveling dual-screen phone, the LG Wing.
Links:
https://twitter.com/wvfrm
https://twitter.com/mkbhd
https://twitter.com/andymanganelli
https://www.instagram.com/wvfrmpodcast/
shop.mkbhd.com
Music by KamrenB: https://spoti.fi/2WRJOFh
Logitech G Pro Lightspeed: https://amzn.to/33HUito
Andrew's Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/andrewmanganelli
Surface Duo Review: https://bit.ly/2E9HV0v
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Microsoft’s Panos Panay unfolds the Surface Duo
Chief Product Officer of Microsoft Panos Panay joins editor-in-chief of The Verge Nilay Patel and senior editor Tom Warren hours after Microsoft’s Surface hardware event to talk about the new Surface lineup — including the debut of their foldable devices.
Mr. Panay also talks about why Microsoft is using Android for their Duo device, their relationship with Google, and the future of dual-screen form factors. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation.
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Panos Panay, E3 2017, and iPad Pro 10.5-inch
Day two of The Vergecast this week! Yesterday, Nilay interviewed Brian Merchant, author of The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone. Today, we have another full episode with a lot going on.
First off, E3 happened this week, and there’s a ton of news in the gaming world. Paul interviews culture reporter Megan Farokhmanesh (who is at the expo) live on tape to talk about what happened on the show floor, the press conferences, and the multitude of games that were shown.
Next, Dieter and Nilay have a fun conversation with special guest Panos Panay from Microsoft to talk about Microsoft’s newest product, the Surface Laptop.
And, of course, we have new reviews out this week! Along with the Surface Laptop, Nilay, Paul, and Dieter discuss the 10.5-inch iPad Pro and the future of these new kinds of computers.
There’s a whole mess of stuff in between that, so listen through it all, and you’ll get it all.
05:37 - Xbox One X
13:47 - E3 2017 with Megan Farokhmanesh
34:44 - Panos Panay interview
1:00:57 - 10.5-inch iPad Pro and Surface Laptop reviews
1:17:44 - Paul’s weekly segment “I C Seed; so much seeing”
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