What Is Nova Act?
Amazon has introduced a new AI system called Nova Act — a general-purpose agent that can browse the web and perform basic tasks like filling out forms, picking dates, and making online reservations. It's currently being released as a research preview, and developers can test it using Amazon’s newly launched Nova Act SDK.
What Makes It Different?
Unlike traditional chatbots that only generate text, Nova Act can take real actions in a browser. Amazon is positioning it as part of its upcoming Alexa+ upgrade — a version of Alexa that’s enhanced with generative AI. Nova Act is designed to automate small web-based tasks, such as ordering from a restaurant or booking an appointment online.
While that sounds useful, it's worth noting that the current release is experimental and not fully refined.
How It Compares to Other AI Agents
Nova Act enters a competitive space that already includes:
OpenAI’s Operator (inside ChatGPT)
Anthropic’s Computer Use (in Claude)
Google’s browser tools (within Gemini)
All of these systems aim to give AI more control over digital environments. So far, their real-world usefulness has been limited. They often struggle with reliability, get stuck during tasks, or produce errors that a human wouldn’t.
Amazon reports that Nova Act performed better than OpenAI and Anthropic in some internal tests, but these tests weren’t based on widely accepted benchmarks — like WebVoyager — making direct comparisons difficult.
Who’s Behind It?
Nova Act was developed at Amazon’s AGI lab in San Francisco, led by former OpenAI and Covariant researchers. The goal of the team is to explore how agent-like systems might evolve into more advanced AI that can use computers like humans do.
However, Nova Act is not a fully autonomous system. It focuses on small, narrowly defined tasks, and developers are encouraged to build in clear limits and fallback mechanisms.
A Cautious Step Forward
Despite its ambitions, Nova Act remains part of a broader wave of agentic AI tools that are still very much in development. Many questions remain — especially around consistency, oversight, and how well these agents generalize beyond demo tasks.
That said, if it integrates well into Alexa, it could give Amazon a unique angle in the consumer AI space. But like its competitors, it faces the same core challenges: building agents that are both capable and dependable.
In Summary
Nova Act shows Amazon’s interest in giving AI more control over digital tasks — a direction many major AI labs are exploring. Whether it becomes useful at scale remains to be seen, but it adds another piece to the evolving picture of what practical AI might look like in everyday life.
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