Amazon devices chief Panos Panay on the new color Kindle, AI, and his first year on the job

Our guest on this episode of the GeekWire Podcast is Panos Panay, Amazon's senior vice president of Devices & Services, a longtime leader in the world of consumer technology. It has been one year since he started at Amazon, after his surprise departure from Microsoft, where he oversaw products including Surface and Windows.

Panay's division at Amazon includes the Alexa voice assistant and Echo devices, but that's just the start. His purview also spans Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Zoox self-driving taxis, Eero wireless networking devices, Ring and Blink cameras, Fire TV devices, and Kuiper, the company's nascent satellite internet business.

The focus this week is Kindle, with the Oct. 30 release of the Kindle Colorsoft, the first color device in Amazon's line of market-leading e-readers, selling for a premium price of $279.99. It's part of a new era for the Kindle business, driven in part by book-loving social media influencers and consumers looking for simplicity and focus in a world of non-stop smartphone alerts.

We also talked about AI, including the generative AI summaries coming with the next-generation Kindle Scribe tablet, due out in December. Panay wasn't ready to dish on what's next for Alexa in conversational AI, but he made it clear that he's bullish on AI in general, and doesn't believe it's a passing fad.

With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop

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