šŸ˜ŗ"Hey, Alexa+..."

PLUS: 3 ChatGPT quick tricks to know...

Welcome, humans.

NVIDIA dropped its Q4 earnings report yesterday, and the numbers are so massive, NVIDIAā€™s finance division might need to upgrade their calculators.

The AI chip giant posted a record $39.3B in quarterly revenueā€”up 78% year-over-yearā€”with their Data Center revenue alone hitting $35.6B. And get this: They're expecting even bigger numbers next quarter at $43B!

Just want to say congratulations to the entire global economy, class of Q1 2025ā€”we did it! No AI crash this quarter (yet, anyway)ā€¦

Real quick: Weā€™ve teamed up with our pals at DZone (you know, that massive dev community with all the tech resources) on a GenAI survey that'll take you less than 10 minutes to answer.

We filled it out ourselves yesterday and were surprised at how quick it goes!

What's in it for you? Early access to their trend report data (perfect for impressing your boss with industry insights), a free Getting Started with Agentic AI ref card, and a chance to win one of two $125 gift cards. 

Check it out here before Fridayā€”your future self will thank you when you're the smartest person in your next AI strategy meeting!

Hereā€™s what you need to know about AI today:

  • Amazon unveiled Alexa+, its next-gen assistant.

  • Study: 92% of UK students use AI for schoolwork.

  • DeepSeek prepared its R2 reasoning model release.

  • Two companies sent a data center to the moon.

Alexa+ is Amazon's AI answer to... well, pretty much everything.

Side rant: Why is everything ā€œPlusā€ these days? ā€œHey Alexa Plus, play Disney Plus on my Roku Express 4K Plus while I drink my Celsius Plus.ā€

Amazon just announced Alexa+, a ā€œcomplete re-architectureā€ of its AI assistant that goes way beyond "Alexa, play Despacito."

This is a fundamental transformation built around large language models (via Amazon Bedrock) that turns Alexa into a genuinely helpful AI companion.

Panos Panay, Amazon's Products and Services Chief, says ā€œthe new Alexa knows almost everything in your lifeā€, including your schedule, smart home, preferences, devices you use, people you're connected to, and entertainment you enjoy.

Here's a taste of what little ole A+ can do:

  1. Pull stats from your Amazon history (ā€œyou've read 17 books this yearā€).

  2. Alert you when Taylor Swift tickets drop.

  3. Recommend the perfect pizza spot based on your preferences and place an order (watch out, Operator).

  4. See and respond to what's happening through its live feed camera.

The integration with Amazon's device ecosystem is where things get interesting. Alexa+ works seamlessly with:

  • Echo speakers and displays (including the new Echo Show with its ā€œFor Youā€ panel).

  • Ring security cameras (summarizing footage or highlighting specific moments).

  • Fire TV (skipping to specific scenes in shows).

  • Smart home devices across your network.

  • Amazon Music and other services.

But Amazon isn't just targeting your home life. Alexa+ wants to be your work assistant, too. Upload documents, emails, and files, and Alexa+ will analyze them to answer questions or create calendar entries and reminders directly from your content.

What makes this particularly clever is that Alexa+ is model-agnosticā€”it uses both Amazon's Nova and Anthropic's Claude models, selecting the best AI for any specific task. This ā€œexpertsā€ system (Amazon claims it will eventually have ā€œtens of thousandsā€ of them) mirrors the agent approach that many AI companies are pursuing, and itā€™s how A+ can interface with all those other devices and services.

So how much will all this set you back? Free for Prime members (of course) or $19.99/month. A+ officially rolls out in the US over the next few weeks via an early access period.

Our take: The focus on completing actual tasks rather than just answering questions is smartā€”it taps into Amazon's gigantic ecosystem of services and devices in a way competitors like ChatGPT and Claude can't match.

Amazon says Alexa+ has ā€œdeep knowledgeā€ and can answer both specific questions and vague onesā€”yeah, weā€™ll need to see how well that works in practice. The new Siri made similar promises, and so far, that hasnā€™t panned out.

Also, A+ represents the ultimate AI privacy paradox. To be genuinely helpful, it needs unprecedented access to your Amazon history, emails, documents, home cameras, and more. This could normalize a level of AI access that other companies have been hesitant to request (and consumers have been unwilling to give).

The question consumers will face: Is the convenience worth the data sharing? 

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Free event: 1 Hour to AI Proficiency

We found the AI workshop you've been waiting for. Section's 60-minute crash course cuts through the AI hype and actually teaches you practical skills.

Weā€™re talking actionable techniques to write prompts that don't suck, set up your ideal AI workspace, and tackle real tasks like planning trips or drafting press releases.

Here's why we're excited: You'll leave with 2-3 use cases you can actually put to work right away.

For reference, 60 minutes = 3 TikTok binges, one meeting that couldā€™ve been an email, or one food delivery (give or take 15). This is DEFINITELY better.

Skip the AI learning curve and jump straight to proficiency.

Prompt Tip of the Day

Did you know you can bookmark and save your prompts and auto submit them with one click? You can even call specific functions like canvas or search with ChatGPTā€™s ā€œhintsā€ parameter. Hereā€™s how it works:

  • ?q=your+prompt+here: Pre-fills the prompt field with your text + submits it.

  • ?hints=search: Automatically opens a new window w/ search mode enabled.

  • ?hints=canvas: Automatically opens with canvas mode enabled.

This is the optimal order if using them all together:

https://chatgpt.com/?hints=search&q=your+prompt+here

See this search example and this demo for canvas. Use this trick to create bookmark shortcuts for your most common AI tasks and save valuable time!

Treats To Try.

  1. Inception's new AI model architecture generates text 10x faster and cheaper than other AI toolsā€”try it here, and ask it to ā€œimplement the game [pick a simple game] in HTML5ā€, it is FREAKY fast (read more).

  2. Octave TTS from Hume creates emotionally intelligent speech that understands your text's meaning, with tools to adjust tone, style, and emphasis.

  3. Eleven Labs, the most popular voice AI model, now has a speech to text transcription model ($0.40 per hour of transcribed audio)ā€”try here.

  4. Phi-4 is Microsoftā€™s new small language model family that can process speech, vision, and text on your deviceā€”try it here (read more).

  5. Emdash is a Slack and Zoom alternative that captures and organizes your team's video meetings and chat conversations to instantly find any info.

  6. Framework Desktop is a powerful new mini gaming (and AI) PC you can customize with swappable ports and personalized design features (read more).

  7. Can I use LLM tells you which language models your computer can run locally based on your hardware specs.

Around the Horn.

  • Researchers found 92% of UK undergrad students use AI to help them with their studies (report)ā€”uh oh!

  • DeepSeek plans to release its second generation reasoning model, R2, ASAP.

  • Claude 3.7 isnā€™t the only AI that can make video games; Matt Berman just demoā€™d some pretty amazing Grok-made games, too.

  • Lonestar and Phison launched the world first ā€œlunar data centerā€ on a SpaceX rocket thatā€™ll store a clientā€™s data on the moonā€”weā€™re not joking.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Building Reliable AI Agents

AI agents are trickyā€”bugs, hallucinations, and edge cases can break workflows.

In this exclusive AI Engineering Summit talk, Anita from Vellum unpacks how we got here, how TDD improves reliability, and even demos her SEO agent. Get access here!

Thursday Trivia

One is real, and one is AI. Which is which? (vote below!)

A.

B.

Which is AI?

The answer is below, but place your vote to see how your guess compares to everyone else (no cheating now!)

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Here are the results from last weekā€™s trivia (A was AI):

10 humans, 4 robots. Weā€™re WINNING. ā€œThe future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselvesā€¦ā€

Hereā€™s what you said:

  • D.H. chose A: ā€œFunky text is again a dead giveaway.ā€

  • C.G chose B: ā€œThe angle of reflection of the yellow light shade is wrong.ā€

  • R.R chose A: ā€œFocus is off / perspective is off / who smokes anymore anyway.ā€

A Cat's Commentary.

Trivia Answer: B is AIā€¦

Thatā€™s all for today, for more AI treats, check out our website.

The best way to support us is by checking out our sponsorsā€”todayā€™s are Section and Vellum.

See you cool cats on Twitter: @noahedelman02

What'd you think of today's email?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.