Amazon Announces Devices & Services Event on February 26

Amazon has just sent invites to an upcoming Devices and Services event in New York City on February 26 (via The Verge). The event will be hosted by Panos Panay, the company’s new head of Devices & Services leader following his departure from Microsoft in September 2023.

The company usually holds a big hardware and software event in the fall, but that didn’t happen last year. We did get new Kindle e-readers, Fire HD tablets, and Echo Show smart displays between October and November, but only the new Kindles got the honor of a small media event.

Panos Panay definitely left his mark on Microsoft’s Surface devices over the years, and the designer probably has big ambitions for Amazon’s products. It’s easy to dismiss Amazon devices as cheap-looking with not-so-great software, but we’ve recently seen the company launch more premium products such as the $279 Kindle Colorsoft or Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series starting at $699.99.

Panay’s team may also have been slowed down by the delayed release of the new generative AI features for Alexa, which were first announced in September 2023. Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist for Alexa AI publicly acknowledged last month that this work has been much more complex than expected. Amazon is indeed very late to the generative AI race, and the company may reportedly choose to lock these new intelligent features for Alexa behind a subscription.