Makes You Lose! Amazon Stops Celebrity Assistant Vote Support For Alexa

JAKARTA - Since its launch in 2019, Alexa users have been able to choose the voice of a celebrity as their virtual assistant. But now, Amazon has removed the ability.

If Alexa users open the Celebrity Personalities page, they will be greeted by the faces of Samuel L. Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, and Melissa McCarthy.

But now, when clicking on their respective pages, users will see an update. Where Celebrity Personalities is no longer available for purchase. Amazon also seems to end support from the voices of the celebrities.

On the Jackson page, users will be treated to a notification where they can still buy an experience and continue to use their voice until April 30, 2023.

As for Shaq and McCarthy, who made similar notifications. However, their voices will still be available until September 30, 2023.

Users who have purchased one of Alexa's celebrity votes, and now that they have been discontinued, Amazon says they can process refunds based on demand.

"After three years, we have eliminated the voices of celebrities. Customers will be able to continue using this voice for a limited amount of time, and can contact our customer service team to ask for refunds," Amazon told PocketLint, quoted Wednesday, May 31.

When Celebrity Personalities for Alexa first launched, he made his debut with a Jackson vote priced at $ 0.99.

Alexa users who buy the experience can call Jackson's voice by saying, "Hey Samuel L. Jackson."

Then, Amazon added the voices of Shaq and McCarthy in 2021 before raising the price to 4.99 US dollars equivalent to Rp74 thousand.

Unfortunately, the exact reason behind Amazon is that it has stopped the Celebrity Personalities voice service for Alexa. According to Android Authority, it is reported that the smart device caused the company to spend a lot of funds.

Causing Amazon, in the end dismissed 10,000 employees with Alexa's voice assistant department being the most affected. Allegedly, due to the inability to monetize virtual assistants.

As Ars Technica claims, "Almost every plan to monetize Alexa has failed, with a former employee calling Alexa an extraordinary imagination failure, and a wasted opportunity," he wrote.