Panos Panay is working to deliver a new premium tier of hardware which will coexist with lower- and mid-priced products in a bid to give consumers more choice while generating new excitement for an Alexa franchise that has lost luster in recent years. 

Panay is pledging to reengineer Amazon’s hardware, from the gadgets’ silicon guts to the design and materials. Whether they fall into the “entry, core or signature” tier, he said, they’ll get the same care and attention. The speakers will sound better, battery life will improve, and the devices will boast the best security available, Panay said.

“I want perfection in every single product that we ship — period,” he told Bloomberg News, while providing few specifics. “There won’t be a corner cut. It won’t matter if we tried it before. It won’t matter what you thought it used to be.”

The voice assistant’s new AI operating system — Alexa+ — will sit at the center of the ecosystem. Thanks to coming “edge-processing” chip upgrades, the devices will eventually be able to handle more AI crunching themselves. That approach, mirroring Apple Inc.’s, could speed up response time and boost privacy. 

The ultimate aim is to facilitate new and more helpful experiences as users move from one gadget to another. “We’re envisioning what’s the next thing for a customer when it comes to AI devices and we have some incredible ones” in development, Panay said. The decision to add premium gadgetry to the lineup echoes the strategy Panay employed while running Microsoft Corp.’s hardware division.

"Panay hinted that augmented reality glasses and new wrist-worn devices could be part of the lineup" as well as well as a revamped home robot – now that Apple is known to be working on one. Panay added "if a robot is part of that, then I’ll make sure we have a great robot.” This fall Panay will unveil the first products that he's overseen.  Bloomberg

While we await Amazon's new devices, we mustn't forget that Panos Panay's vision for a foldable smartphone dubbed the "Surface Duo" and foldable tablet "Surface Neo" (that never came to market) were failures for choosing not to go with a standard industry foldable display. And Microsoft Surface notebooks never challenged the MacBook which was Panay's goal. So it's easy to be a little skeptical of Amazon's great new premium lineup coming this fall.

Panos Panay is a positive and passionate executive and hopefully something of value will emerge this fall, like AI Glasses that will prove his many skeptics wrong. Nothing like a little pressure wouldn't you say.