The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which recently kicked off in Las Vegas giving companies a chance to showcase their newest products and innovations, saw Amazon unveiling some initiatives.

 The Amazon initiatives include matter casting on Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devises, a newly-announced global partnership with Panasonic, a live demonstration of in-vehicle generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities with BMW and Siemens’ integration of AWS generative AI technology, Amazon Bedrock, the technology company said in a media statement.

Here’s a look at some announcements and on-site demonstrations made at CES by Amazon.

AWS, Siemens Bring Generative AI: AWS and Siemens took the CES spotlight as Vice President of Product Matt Wood joined Siemens Global CEO Roland Busch on stage during the opening keynote to share how the two companies are making it easier to access generative AI tools across industries.

Siemens is integrating Amazon Bedrock, a service that offers a choice of high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies via a single API, along with security, privacy, and responsible AI capabilities —with Mendix, the leading low-code platform that is part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio. This will allow more customers to build, scale, and supercharge existing applications with the power of generative AI on AWS.

New Partnership with Fire TV, Panasonic: Panasonic announced a global collaboration with Amazon to bring Fire TV built in to its new smart TVs starting in 2024. With Fire TV built in and access to Alexa, customers will be able to enjoy a world of entertainment, including live over-the-air content, and streaming apps and services.

Panasonic also unveiled two new flagship OLED smart TVs with Fire TV built in. The Panasonic Z95A and Z93A models will allow customers to easily launch apps, play music, search for titles, and control compatible smart home devices, using far-field voice control with Alexa.

When not in use for viewing content, these TVs transform into dynamic displays with the Fire TV Ambient Experience. The Fire TV Ambient Experience turns the biggest screen in your home into a beautiful, always-smart display that can show personal photos, and glanceable information like calendars and reminders through customizable Alexa widgets.

Alexa, BMW Collab: A car is a perfect place for a voice assistant—and Amazon and BMW showcased what’s possible with new Alexa LLM-powered capabilities.

These new capabilities provide a more natural way of getting to know your new car and allow it to take select actions on your behalf. Instead of digging through the car manual, onec an ask BMW’s assistant for things like recommendations on different BMW drive modes and then have the assistant activate the chosen mode.

One can also ask for instructions on how car features work — like the parking assistance system — and hear explanations in easy-to-understand terms through the BMW assistant’s customized voice.

Matter Casting on Fire TV, Echo Show 15: Amazon is a long-time supporter of using open technology standards to give customers more choice over the devices and services they use in their homes. That’s also why Amazon is a founding member and key contributor to the Matter Standard, the company said in the media statement.

At CES, Amazon announced Matter Casting, which enables customers to cast content to Fire TV and Echo Show 15 devices directly from supported streaming apps on iOS and Android. Customers can begin watching a movie or browse for their next favourite show from Prime Video on their phone, and cast it to their compatible Fire TV device or Echo Show 15. This is an industry-first demonstration of implementing Matter Casting.

With customizable widgets, dynamic art, and more, the Fire TV Ambient Experience transforms the TV screen and the role of the smart TV in the home.

“We are excited to work with Amazon to bring Matter Casting to the STARZ app. Matter has been easy to integrate and will provide even more options for customers to enjoy our extensive collection of original series and popular films on their device of choice,” said Alison Hoffman, STARZ President of Domestic Networks.

Matter Casting is available now for customers around the world who want to cast Prime Video content from iOS and Android devices to Echo Show 15. It will be coming to compatible Fire TV devices in the coming months, including smart TVs from Panasonic with Fire TV built in.

New Generation Robotaxis: Amazon said following a year of key milestones, including becoming the first company in history to operate a purpose-built robotaxi on public roads with passengers, Zoox showcased the latest generation of its purpose-built vehicle at CES 2024.

Zoox also offered an exclusive opportunity to CES attendees to join its early-bird waitlist and be among the first to sign up for its autonomous ride hailing service.

New generative AI-powered Alexa: In 2023, Amazon said it had introduced new tools that would make it easier and faster for developers to use generative AI to build conversational experiences with Alexa.

At CES it said customers can try some of these new developer-built experiences for themselves.

With Character.ai, Alexa customers can have just-for-fun conversations with different Characters, including getting motivated with fitness coaches, gaining insight from historical figures such as Socrates, receiving book recommendations from Librarian Linda, playing RPGs with Text Adventure Game, and more.

Splash is connecting its AI-powered music creation technology with Alexa. Customers can interact with the Splash experience to create their own song and personalize elements like genre, lyrics, and more—all through voice. From there, customers can send the song they made to their mobile phone.

AI Advancements With Alexa Fund: In addition to featuring its own products, Amazon showcased a selection of Alexa Fund portfolio companies at CES.

This included MultiOn, a new personal artificial intelligence agent, which displayed its browser experience that lets customers use the agent to accomplish tasks such as reserving a table at a restaurant, or inviting friends to dinner — all on autopilot.

Embodied, Inc, a company focused on AI-powered robotics companions, also showed off the evolution of its Moxie Robot, which will offer children emotional and academic support. It will be available to purchase in 2024.

Alexa Funds invests in tech and startups that are fuelling innovation in areas like artificial intelligence, smart devices and new media.