Amazon, $AMZN, is working on an AI assistant that competes with ChatGPT, codenamed 'Metis'

Amazon, $AMZN, is working on an AI assistant that competes with ChatGPT, codenamed 'Metis'.

Amazon is reportedly developing a powerful AI chatbot designed to compete directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Business Insider has reported that Amazon, perceived by some as lagging in the race to create generative AI, is responding with a significant new project. The chatbot, codenamed Metis, is powered by an Amazon language model known as Olympus, which is being trained on an extensive two trillion parameters of data—roughly double the capability of GPT-4. This enhanced scope aims to make Metis more adept at human-like responses, reducing errors in context and reasoning.

Metis will position Amazon alongside other major tech players like Google and Microsoft, which already offer their own bespoke AI assistants. The competitive AI landscape also includes many startups, such as Amazon-backed Anthropic and Perplexity, offering their own solutions.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has expressed concern over the company's current standing. Bezos reportedly questioned senior staff in emails about why more AI firms were not using Amazon's cloud services, highlighting his worry about Amazon's position in the AI sector.

The new Amazon chatbot is expected to “deliver text and image-based answers in a conversational manner,” provide links to source responses, suggest follow-up points of interest, and generate images. With Olympus's added capacity, the chatbot is anticipated to return information beyond the original data source, such as updated stock prices.

Metis is also envisioned to function as an “AI agent,” capable of performing additional tasks autonomously. This includes data analysis, decision-making, and multitasking based on activity patterns and set algorithms.

Reports suggest a proposed launch for Metis in late September this year.