Amazon Tries to Out-Chat ChatGPT with "Olympus": Will It Work?

Amazon seems to be throwing its hat into the AI chatbot ring with a Herculean effort they're calling "Olympus"—because what's a tech project without a name that harks back to ancient myths of power and might? They're playing catch-up with OpenAI and Google, and from the sounds of it, they're sparing no expense or parameter to get there.

Come December, we might see this AI titan flexing its digital muscles, assuming it doesn't trip over its own shoelaces like the ill-fated "Titan" did last year. Remember Titan? Amazon probably wishes you didn't. It was their previous AI brainchild that got benched faster than a third-string quarterback after ChatGPT showed up and started completing passes Amazon could only dream of.

Now, they're doubling down with a model that’s apparently so big, it could have its own gravitational pull with two trillion parameters. But let's be real: in the AI world, bragging about the size of your model is a bit like boasting about the number of pages in your unfinished novel. It's not just the size; it's what you do with it that counts.

And what exactly does Amazon plan to do with "Olympus"? Integrate it into Alexa Assistant, for starters. Because when we think of meaningful conversation and the pinnacle of digital interaction, we definitely think of asking Alexa to re-order toilet paper. But wait, there's more: Amazon might just put a price tag on these chatty new features. Because nothing says "innovation" like charging for small talk with your speaker.

In all seriousness, it's a bold play by Amazon, aiming to make Alexa the life of the party, or at least smart enough to fake it convincingly. All eyes will be on them to see if "Olympus" will be the AI to beat, or just another story of Amazon flying too close to the sun.

Read next: Google Celebrates Its Biggest Global Expansion Yet After Launching Its Generative AI Search Feature In More Than 120 Nations