The latest devices from Amazon, Meta, Google and more

Three years since the arrival of OpenAI‘s ChatGPT, more devices featuring generative AI technology have hit the market in time for the 2025 holiday shopping season, with many offering deals for Black Friday.

Shoppers can pick from more advanced smart glasses, smart speakers with genAI and a pendant AI friend that acts as a confidant.

These latest gizmos come from megacaps like Amazon, Alphabet and Meta and smaller players like Friend and Plaud.

Despite the arrival of this new wave of products, reviews for many of the devices are mixed, and nothing has separated itself as a clear leader of the pack.

That’s in part because much of the spending on artificial intelligence has been focused on other things.

Since ChatGPT was released in late 2022, the bulk of the tech industry has reoriented itself to prioritize building out large language models in a race to reach artificial general intelligence, or AI with the capabilities that are on par with, or surpass, humans.

Thus far, much of the development in Silicon Valley has focused on AI apps, including chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude, image generators like Google’s Nano Banana or feeds for AI-generated short-form videos like OpenAI’s Sora. All things people can access on their existing smartphones without a spiffy new gadget.

But the world of AI hardware is growing fast.

If you’re in the market for the latest AI devices, here’s what’s available to snag this holiday season.

The company unveiled Alexa+ in February, promising a smarter, more conversational and personalized version of its 11-year-old digital assistant. In September, it followed up with a new set of Echo speakers and displays, which are the first devices to come with Alexa+ out of the box. 

The lineup includes a $100 Echo Dot Max, $180 Echo Show, $220 Echo Studio and $220 Echo Show 11.

The Echo Dot Max is an entry-level, all-purpose smart speaker, while the Echo Studio is larger, pricier and offers better sound quality. The main difference between Amazon’s smart displays, the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, is the touchscreen size.  

All of the devices have improved sensors, speakers and microphones.

Amazon is offering 11% off the cost of the Echo Show 11 and 10% off the Echo Dot Max as part of its Black Friday promotions.

With the upgrades, Amazon is aiming to have users engage more often with the devices than their predecessors. Consumers frequently complained that Alexa had grown outdated while the Echo devices offered little utility beyond setting timers, spouting weather forecasts, playing music and controlling smart home accessories, like turning lights on and off. 

Amazon’s recent Alexa ad tries to paint…