Welcome to Lowpass! This week: Why Alexa+ is worrying voice developers, and why Dads will rule VR.

Amazon’s Alexa+ plans worry some voice developers

When Amazon launches its new Alexa+ voice assistant in beta later this month, consumers may find a few things amiss. That’s because Alexa+ is poised to launch without many of the 160,000 skills currently available on the original Alexa. Consumers will still have access to popular services like Netflix, NPR and Spotify, but a number of lesser-known, longtail voice apps built for the original Alexa are expected to be absent from the new platform.

The company does have a transition plan of sorts in place for existing skills, with an Amazon spokesperson telling me that “the vast majority of original Alexa skills that customers use will be supported on Alexa+ from the start. If there are any skills customers want added that are not supported, they can let us know and we’ll work to enable them on Alexa+.”

Amazon has yet to publish detailed guidance for Alexa developers about these changes, leading to some confusion and concerns among the voice developer community. I’ve been in touch with half a dozen developers and publishers with connections to the Alexa ecosystem, most of which agreed to talk to me under the condition that I do not mention their name. 

Some expressed doubts about the future of monetizing voice experiences on Alexa, as well as the strength of Amazon’s commitment to existing skills now that the company’s focus is on Alexa+ and its new APIs. "They'll let them wither away," mused one of my conversation partners.

Few updates, save for one ominous note

When Amazon announced Alexa+ last month, it emphasized the new conversational capabilities of the LLM-powered voice assistant. Demos showed off the capability of Alexa+ to handle a series of tasks in succession, and for instance book a restaurant reservation and then hail an Uber to the restaurant in a single conversation. To do this, Alexa+ is using a couple of new APIs that can integrate directly with third-party services, solve tasks on supported websites and more.