The tools, announced at Amazon's annual cloud event in Las Vegas, aim to help the company's cloud customers incorporate functionality such as natural language processing, but without long waits often associated with AI-related projects. Amazon says it is making this possible by integrating machine learning into the two new stand-alone services. "There's no machine-learning expertise required for either of these services. They're just plug and play. You don't have to get into all the weeds and get the training data and label the data and all those sorts of things," said Matt Wood, vice president for artificial intelligence services at Amazon Web Services.

Alexa has changed a lot in the last three years, but the Echo hasn't. The hefty monolithic cylinder still acts as most people's entrant into the Echo ecosystem. But today, Amazon announced a new, redesigned Echo that makes Alexa sound better, work better, and look better. The looks maybe matter most: The new Echo is considerably shorter than the last, like a mid-point between the Echo and the Dot. Amazon made six different shells for the thing, including a few wood-veneer options, to blend into your home a little better than a big black can of tennis balls.

Amazon unveiled its new Echo Show Tuesday, an Alexa-powered device with a built-in screen. It was reported last year that Amazon was working on an Echo device with a built-in screen. Rumored features of the device were also reported before the gadget was announced. Last week leaked images showed the Amazon Echo Show in black and white -- and those pictures turned out to be real. "Echo Show brings you everything you love about Alexa, and now she can show you things," Amazon says on its site.