Amazon Ready To Launch 'Metical' Chatbot To Compete With ChatGPT From OpenAI

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (photo: x @Uttupaaji)

JAKARTA - Tech companies are competing in the race for the supremacy of artificial intelligence (AI), and Amazon doesn't seem to want to be left behind. The tech giant is secretly developing an AI chatbot that is expected to attract users from ChatGPT.

Amazon's "ChatGPT killer" called 'Metis' follows the Greek god's name from wisdom most likely to launch at Amazon's fall product launching event, which is expected to take place next September.

When asked, Metis will return the latest text information in 'dispute' and images. However, its ability will go further by performing 'complex' tasks such as turning on lights and ordering flights for users and even playing the role of an 'AI agent'.

The report was published by Business Insider, citing 'internal documents' and 'people familiar with projects' on Amazon.

"Amazon is working on a new AI service to compete with ChatGPT," the report reads. "The planned launch date for Metis is September, around the time Amazon held a major Alexa event."

Like ChatGPT, Metis will be accessible via a web browser, the report times, but may also be available through the Amazon app later.

Like ChatGPT too, Metis will boast of 'generation coupled with search' the ability to retrieve information from outside the original data she trained.

But Amazon wants to make it a smarter and more empowered helper than ChatGPT, creating an 'AI agent' that doesn't just focus on bringing facts back.

With Metis, Amazon joins the already bustling AI chatbot market, which is largely fueled by the popularity of ChatGPT.

It is currently unclear whether this is a separate project on Amazon or whether Metis will be integrated with Alexa.

In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy admitted that the company had worked on their own big language model (LLMs) AI that could understand and produce human language texts.

"Let's say that LLM and Generative AI will be big things for our customers, shareholders and Amazon," he said.

Business Insider says Amazon is "trying to catch up in the AI race", particularly in consumer AI assistants that have become 'empt points' for the tech giant.

Concrete competitors in this technology already have their own AI chatbots, including Google (Gemini) and X (Grok), while Microsoft and Apple now have integration with ChatGPT.

Amazon has introduced a chatbot called Q, although this chatbot helps with business questions but is not designed for public use such as news, weather, and facts.