In a Q1 earnings call in April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hinted at an overlap between the ongoing chatbot-AI search race and the company’s legacy product, Alexa.

“We’ve had a large language model underneath [Alexa] but we’re building one that’s much larger and much more generalized and capable,” Jassy told investors. “I think that’s going to really rapidly accelerate our vision of becoming the world’s best personal assistant.”

Alexa isn’t Amazon’s only generative AI play: Jassy’s comments, which came just six months after the company announced wide-scale layoffs, were followed by reports of leaked documents describing plans for a ChatGPT-esque Alexa reboot, plus a conversational search for its online store.

Rival voice-assistant maker Google is looking to get ahead in the field of generative AI.

In an emailed statement, Duke Dukellis, director of product management for Google Assistant, said that Google will “continue working closely with third-party developers and device makers as well to build the Assistant directly into Pixel phones, buds, watches, and other devices.” (Separately, the company is reportedly cutting back funding for Google Assistant developers.)

The dark horse of voice assistants, one that hasn’t had any significant changes since its release in 2011, may finally get a chance to shine. Amazon’s apparent moves toward a more capable Alexa could spur some long-awaited updates to Siri (of “here’s what I found on the web” fame), according to Insider Intelligence Analyst Jacob Bourne.

Keep reading here.—MA

VenHub’s fully autonomous, 24/7 smart stores are reinventing convenience.

This isn’t a mere self-checkout system: Customers order from an app, then robots fill the order. And with 152k+ convenience stores in the US generating $652b in sales, increasing the efficiency of these stores is a huge market opportunity.

VenHub’s robotics and AI can help store owners achieve up to 5x higher margins and open new locations in 98% less time, nearly eliminating real estate and construction overhead. No wonder they’ve racked up $44m in smart-store preorders already.

Now VenHub is checking every box for investors. Using tech to solve an age-old problem? Check. Massive market potential? Check. Customers lining up to buy? Big check.

The opportunity to invest in VenHub on the ground floor is open to everybody. You can even get a 15% discount on their share price by investing before June 21. Learn more here.

Aviation giant Boeing might be king of the skies, but when it comes to space, it’s struggling to get off the ground.

Boeing announced at a NASA press conference on June 1 that it hit another snag in the development of its Starliner spacecraft that threatens to significantly impair its operational timeline.

Boeing said that the Starliner capsule was hit with a double whammy of issues. The first is related to the safety of its parachute system, which a subcontractor informed Boeing could fail at limits much lower than originally tested. The second is with tape that is used throughout Starliner, which Boeing discovered to be flammable.

The snafus are a major setback for Starliner, which had its first crewed flight test scheduled for July 21, when it would take two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Keep reading here.—JM

A new report from BloombergNEF estimates that there will be over 100 million passenger EVs on roads across the globe by 2026, and over 700 million by 2040.

Internal combustion vehicle sales, which peaked in 2017, are presently declining. EVs are currently displacing 1.5 million barrels of oil demand per day, and global oil demand for road transport will peak in 2027, according to the report.

That may all sound like good news, but, according to the report, without additional policymaking by governments globally, those numbers might not be enough to keep global emissions targets on track.

Keep reading here.—MA

Stat: 736. The number of times Teslas in Autopilot mode have crashed in the US since 2019, “far more than previously reported,” according to the Washington Post, which analyzed National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

Quote: “Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year’s convention of Protestants in Germany.”—An avatar that gave “an experimental Lutheran church service almost entirely generated by AI,” the AP reported

Read: The AI revolution will change work. Nobody agrees how (the New York Times)

Content compass: Why do 71% of tech companies think investing in content can help safeguard their finances during uncertain times? Bynder’s State of Content Report 2023 has all the insights. Peep it.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Catch up on the top Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• A matter of supply and demand in outer space
• Modern slavery persists in tech supply chains, report finds
• Tech talent is shifting beyond—and within—the Bay Area