Apple and Amazon Promised Us Revolutionary AI. We’re Still Waiting.

Welcome to the age of Artificial In…completion.

Let’s recap. At a February event, Amazon AMZN -7.97%decrease; red down pointing triangle announced Alexa+, a more conversational, generative-AI version of its famous assistant. During onstage demos, Alexa+ handled a complicated Uber order, answered questions about a user’s email and calendars—and even sifted through hours of Ring camera footage to find a cute dog.

The company said Alexa+ would begin rolling out in March. By March 31, no reviewers like myself had received test units. What’s more, I couldn’t find a single user of the Alexa+ service. I continue to try.

An Amazon spokeswoman said that the early access rollout started on the final day of March, reaching only “a small number of customers.” She wouldn’t say how small, and added that “our goal is to get to millions of customers using Alexa+ in May.” A number of the demoed features, including ordering groceries and finding event tickets, aren’t part of the initial rollout either.

Then there’s Apple AAPL -9.33%decrease; red down pointing triangle. In March, the iPhone maker said that some of its AI Siri enhancements—originally showcased last June as part of iOS 18, which launched in September—were taking longer to deliver than expected. “We anticipate rolling them out in the coming year,” an Apple spokeswoman said.

Apple ran an iPhone 16 Pro ad that highlighted how this “more personal Siri” could scan previous calendar appointments to help recall the name of someone you once met at a coffee shop. The company stopped running the ad, and even made it vanish from its YouTube account.

Sure, these tech giants have made different promises, but the theme is the same: We have been misled.

I understand that this is challenging technology and the cost of getting it wrong is devastatingly high, especially for companies like Apple and Amazon that must build trust with customers. But the same responsibility applies to marketing: They shouldn’t announce products until they’re sure they can deliver them.

Pressure to get it out

I don’t need to tell you about the AI mania that has gripped the stock market. If you’re a tech company and you’re not shouting “AI! AI! AI!” to assure investors and the public you’re on it, you might as well go look for the BlackBerry executives’ support group.

In the words of David Bowie and Queen: “Under pressure!”

Apple’s response? Apple Intelligence. Some analysts even predicted “The Great Apple Intelligence iPhone Super Cycle,” expecting us to stampede Apple Stores to buy the latest iPhone 16 models just for the new AI tools—despite minimal hardware improvements. That never happened.

“We see this launch as the start of a multi-year software-driven upgrade cycle,” Bank of America wrote in an analyst note around the time of the iPhone 16 announcement in September. But Apple reported that iPhone sales in the quarter ended in December were down nearly 1% from the prior year.

Amazon is up against something similar. Back in late 2023, the company teased a “smarter Alexa,” but it wasn’t until that February event, a year and a half later, that Alexa+ was shown off. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy kicked off the show talking about the real AI cash cows—AWS and the company’s AI-powered enterprise services—but the next hour was all about Alexa+.

Again, analysts cheered! “We are most optimistic about AMZN’s ability to drive more durable e-commerce growth from Alexa+,” said Morgan Stanley in an analyst note.

Pressure to get it right

The pressure only mounts when it’s time to ship these features to millions of users.

If you ask Alexa+ for a reminder to “Call the movers,” and you end up with an Uber, well…not good. Generative AI raises the possibilities—and pitfalls—of these longtime voice assistants that many of us rely on for everyday tasks like setting timers and reminders. And with Amazon’s and Apple’s massive user bases, the stakes are much higher than they are with the new voice buddies from OpenAI, Meta and others.

Amazon says 600 million Alexa devices are currently in use, and it eventually plans to bring Alexa+ to most of them. For now, you’re only eligible if you signed up early and have a recent Echo Show. Later, you’ll need a Prime subscription or a $20-a-month Alexa+ plan. 

Apple promised the new Siri and Apple Intelligence to those with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. Many of the features, including Writing Tools, Image Playground and notification summaries, rolled out in late 2024, with mixed results. The company never showed off the advanced Siri capabilities—including the ability for the assistant to take actions in apps and understand what’s on the screen—after the June keynote presentation.

Sticking generative AI into our existing gadgets isn’t as simple as building from scratch.

Panos Panay, head of devices and services at Amazon, told me in February that the updated Alexa isn’t just a language model slapped on top of old Alexa—it’s a complete rearchitecture.

“This is a big lift,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, admitted when I asked about Siri’s progress in an October interview. “You could put something out there and have it be sort of a mess. Apple’s point of view is more like, ‘Let’s try to get each piece right and release it when it’s ready.’”

As a longtime product reviewer, I agree. I don’t want to test something that clearly isn’t ready. But when you overhype and underdeliver—and in Apple’s case, attempt to convince us these enhancements justify an expensive phone upgrade—we’re left wondering: Why should we buy your next shiny thing? Where’s that trust?

And you know Wall Street analysts love that. “Ding-ding-ding-ding-a-ding-ding…Pressure.”

Write to Joanna Stern at joanna.stern@wsj.com