Amazon devices and services head Panos Panay told the Financial Times that building a new smartphone is “just not the goal” and that there’s “no clear path that makes sense,” pushing back on a March Reuters report that Amazon was developing an AI-focused phone codenamed Transformer using Alexa as an operating system. Panay, who previously led Microsoft’s failed Surface Duo phone, said Amazon won’t repeat the mistake of going to customers with “another phone” without a reason, though he stopped short of a flat no, calling that framing “misleading.” The comments come as Amazon’s devices unit faces extreme pressure to turn a profit, having lost $25B from 2017 to 2021 and an estimated $10B on Alexa alone in 2022, with Panay saying CEO Andy Jassy has tasked him with making devices “one of the next big businesses of Amazon.”
