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Panos Panay, Amazon\u2019s head of devices and services, believes the reign of the smartphone screen may be nearing a tipping point. Speaking at Fortune Brainstorm AI in San Francisco, he suggested that a growing fatigue with social media \u201cdoom scrolling\u201d is paving the way for a new era of \u201cambient intelligence\u201d\u2014one driven by a generation that interacts with technology in fundamentally different ways,.<\/p>\n
According to Panay, the future of consumer technology isn\u2019t about better apps, but about making the technology disappear into the background.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a whole younger generation coming up that I think at some point they get tired of doom scrolling,\u201d he observed, noting that many young people feel \u201cstuck\u201d when it comes to social media. He argued that this demographic, having been raised in an emerging \u201cAI world,\u201d will demand interactions that bypass the friction of traditional computing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to just think differently,\u201d Panay predicted. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to make sure you have products in their pockets, on their bodies, in their homes that they don\u2019t expect\u2026 [but] expect to connect seamlessly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Panay described a user experience that eliminates the need to look at a screen to solve daily problems. \u201cIt\u2019s such a joy because there\u2019s no opening a phone, opening the app, clicking, finding \u2026 none of it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou just ask the question and you get it back\u201d.<\/p>\n
He illustrated this shift with a personal anecdote about a family debate over which restaurant to visit. Rather than everyone retreating to their corners to stare at their phones\u2014a moment that usually disrupts family connection\u2014they simply asked Alexa. The AI recalled a conversation from months prior regarding a restaurant they had wanted to try, settling the debate instantly. \u201cIt\u2019s such a simple, delightful moment of when ambient intelligence is around you,\u201d Panay noted.<\/p>\n
To support this screen-free future, Amazon is aggressively experimenting with new hardware. While Panay declined to get into specific product roadmaps, he hinted that the current smart speakers and phones are not the endgame.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ve seen the next form factor yet on where AI devices are going to go,\u201d he said, adding that Amazon has a \u201clab full of ideas,\u201d though most ideas won\u2019t make it from prototype to reality.<\/p>\n
When pressed on whether Amazon would release wearables or glasses to compete with recent partnerships like that of OpenAI and Jony Ive\u2019s io, Panay pointed to Amazon\u2019s portfolio, including the recent acquisition of a company that makes a wristband. \u201cWe have wearables, we have earbuds, we\u2019ve had glasses in the past.\u201d He added that he won\u2019t reveal what\u2019s coming next, but insisted, \u201cI think you\u2019re going to want your assistant with you everywhere you go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Security concerns come hand in hand with these sort of advances, too. When asked by an audience member about the risks of placing listening devices in homes, Panay described security as a non-negotiable agreement. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s a contract with our customers, period. We break that contract, we lose our customers.\u201d He emphasized that Amazon does not \u201ccut one corner\u201d regarding security protocols, describing it as the \u201cfirst premise\u201d of their product design.<\/p>\n
The bridge to this ambient future is the newly updated \u201cAlexa Plus,\u201d which Panay describes as a shift from a command-based tool to a comprehensive \u201chome manager\u201d and \u201cbutler.\u201d Unlike \u201clegacy Alexa,\u201d which often required users to navigate complex setups, the new AI possesses \u201cunlimited depth of understanding\u201d and contextual memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019ve asked it two or three questions in the last couple of weeks \u2026 the understanding, the personality will just change and say it understands what I\u2019m looking for,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
For Panay, the ultimate goal is to return time to the user, moving them away from the distraction of screens and toward meaningful activity. \u201cI think learning is one of the finest arts on the planet \u2026 and I think reading does that,\u201d he said, positioning the shift away from doom scrolling as not just a technological evolution, but a cultural one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Amazons #Alexa #chief #predicts #doom #scrolling #differently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Panos Panay, Amazon\u2019s head of … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1932,374,1931,1826,1088,5895,5893,300,1425,5894,930],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}