New Delhi: The world of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots has witnessed rapid growth in the past year, with several companies launching their versions of conversational agents that can interact with users and perform various tasks. One of the pioneers in this field was OpenAI, a research organization that released ChatGPT in November 2022, a chatbot that could generate natural and engaging responses to any input. ChatGPT quickly became popular among users, who appreciated its ability to handle diverse topics and provide creative and humorous answers. ChatGPT also demonstrated the potential of AI chatbots to enhance the personal lives of users, by offering them entertainment, information, and companionship.
Following the success of ChatGPT, other tech giants such as Google also entered the AI chatbot market, with products such as Bard, a chatbot that could write stories, poems, and essays based on user prompts. Moreover, many companies started to integrate AI chatbots into their services, such as customer support, e-commerce, and education, to provide a better user experience and increase efficiency. As the year 2023 came to an end, a new competitor joined the AI chatbot race: Amazon, the e-commerce and cloud computing giant.
Amazon announced the launch of its own AI chatbot, named Q, in December 2023, exactly one year after the launch of ChatGPT. Unlike ChatGPT and Bard, which were aimed at general users, Q was designed specifically for businesses, and was available only to Amazon’s AWS cloud computing customers. Q was intended to compete with other business-oriented chatbots, such as Microsoft’s Copilot, which was powered by OpenAI technology and could generate code snippets based on user queries.
Q’s main features included the ability to summarize uploaded documents, such as reports, contracts, and proposals, and to answer questions related to any specific data stored on the company’s server, such as sales figures, inventory, and customer feedback. Q’s monthly cost was set at $20, which was lower than some of its rivals, such as Copilot, which charged $29 per month. Q also claimed to offer a more secure and reliable service, as it allowed the customers to control the access to their content and data.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Q was a more advanced and trustworthy version of AI chatbot, that could help businesses improve their productivity and decision-making. He also said that Q was based on the latest research and development in the field of generative AI, and that it would continue to evolve and improve over time. Jassy added that Q was part of Amazon’s vision to democratize AI and make it accessible and affordable to everyone.
