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The New Alexa Tablets Feel Like a Blueprint for an Amazon Phone

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The New Alexa Tablets Feel Like a Blueprint for an Amazon Phone

Is Amazon making a smartphone? A Reuters report from earlier this year revealed details about a device codenamed Transformer under development, with Amazon's Alexa+ AI assistant as the focus of the experience.

With Amazon announcing a complete rebrand of its tablet line on Thursday—killing the cheap Fire Tablets and replacing them with premium Alexa Tablets that finally run Android with access to the Google Play Store—we now have a blueprint for what an Android-powered Amazon phone could look like.

Amazon's souped-up Alexa+ assistant is front and center on the tablets. There's a persistent “Ask Alexa” widget on the home screen that lets you call on the assistant to ask it questions—you can say “Alexa” to trigger it, too. But Alexa+ now finally has what Amazon calls On-Screen Intelligence. Like Google's Gemini on Android phones or Apple's Siri on iPhones, which can read your screen and answer contextual questions, Alexa now has the same functionality (if you opt in).

The Ask Alexa widget is accessible in the corner of the Alexa Tablet.

That can be for simple things like summarizing a web page, but it can be used for more complex tasks. Watching a YouTube video about a new product? Ask Alexa whether the product is on Amazon, and if so, add it to your Amazon shopping cart. Perusing an Infatuation article about new restaurants in your area? Ask Alexa to highlight the ones closest to your office.

Alexa also supports “live sessions,” just like Gemini Live or ChatGPT's Voice Mode —it lets you have a free-form back-and-forth conversation with the assistant.


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