An AI powered personalized news brief

Smart Briefing was Alexa's AI-generated morning news briefing, built for Alexa+, Amazon's new paid tier. I was the sole designer, working with one PM and about a dozen engineers from November 2023 to 2024. I took it from concept through full engineering handoff.

An AI powered personalized news brief

Smart Briefing was Alexa's AI-generated morning news briefing, built for Alexa+, Amazon's new paid tier. I was the sole designer, working with one PM and about a dozen engineers from November 2023 to 2024. I took it from concept through full engineering handoff.

An AI powered personalized news brief

Alexa's old news feed was flat and generic, unchanged since 2017. I was the solo designer who took Smart Briefing, its AI-personalized replacement, from concept through handoff.

An AI powered personalized news brief

Smart Briefing was Alexa's AI-generated morning news briefing, built for Alexa+, Amazon's new paid tier. I was the sole designer, working with one PM and about a dozen engineers from November 2023 to 2024. I took it from concept through full engineering handoff.

beyond the status quo

Creating a Better News Brief

Alexa+ was planned as a subscription, so Smart Briefing had to be worth paying for over just keeping the competent free version. Along with that challenge, another wrinkle: the LLM platform, the design system, and the personalization model were all still under construction.

8

screen configurations, from a round Echo Spot to a near-TV-scale display

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Current funcitonality: Flash Briefing let customers enable providers, reorder feeds, and curate by topic.

Pain: Setup was hunting through a skills store, provider quality varied and Alexa had no idea who's speaking

Pain: Adjusting preferences was too much work. You couldn't just say, "I'm tired of hearing about the elections."

beyond the status quo

Creating a Better News Brief

Alexa+ was planned as a subscription, so Smart Briefing had to be worth paying for over just keeping the competent free version. Along with that challenge, another wrinkle: the LLM platform, the design system, and the personalization model were all still under construction.

8

screen configurations, from a round Echo Spot to a near-TV-scale display

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Current funcitonality: Flash Briefing let customers enable providers, reorder feeds, and curate by topic.

Pain: Setup was hunting through a skills store, provider quality varied and Alexa had no idea who's speaking

Pain: Adjusting preferences was too much work. You couldn't just say, "I'm tired of hearing about the elections."

the context

Creating a Better News Brief

Alexa+ was planned as a subscription, so Smart Briefing had to be worth paying for over just keeping the competent free version. Along with that challenge, another wrinkle: the LLM platform, the design system, and the personalization model were all still under construction.

8

screen configurations, from a round Echo Spot to a near-TV-scale display

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Current funcitonality: Flash Briefing let customers enable providers, reorder feeds, and curate by topic.

Pain: Setup was hunting through a skills store, provider quality varied and Alexa had no idea who's speaking

Pain: Adjusting preferences was too much work. You couldn't just say, "I'm tired of hearing about the elections."

beyond the status quo

Creating a Better News Brief

Alexa+ was planned as a subscription, so Smart Briefing had to be worth paying for over just keeping the competent free version. Along with that challenge, another wrinkle: the LLM platform, the design system, and the personalization model were all still under construction.

8

screen configurations, from a round Echo Spot to a near-TV-scale display

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Current funcitonality: Flash Briefing let customers enable providers, reorder feeds, and curate by topic.

Pain: Setup was hunting through a skills store, provider quality varied and Alexa had no idea who's speaking

Pain: Adjusting preferences was too much work. You couldn't just say, "I'm tired of hearing about the elections."

discovery

Voice First, Screen Second

Device Placement

Kitchen counters, nightstands, and shelves. Making coffee, half-dressed, getting kids out the door. Near the device, rarely in front of it.

Control Beyond Touch

Source-level control they could state out loud and have remembered, plus an exit ramp to the full article when a story actually caught them.

Partner Controls

News partners set their own image policies. Some stories arrived with nothing, and the screen still had to work rather than degrade politely.

discovery

Voice First, Screen Second

Device Placement

Kitchen counters, nightstands, and shelves. Making coffee, half-dressed, getting kids out the door. Near the device, rarely in front of it.

Control Beyond Touch

Source-level control they could state out loud and have remembered, plus an exit ramp to the full article when a story actually caught them.

Partner Controls

News partners set their own image policies. Some stories arrived with nothing, and the screen still had to work rather than degrade politely.

discovery

Voice First, Screen Second

Device Placement

Kitchen counters, nightstands, and shelves. Making coffee, half-dressed, getting kids out the door. Near the device, rarely in front of it.

Control Beyond Touch

Source-level control they could state out loud and have remembered, plus an exit ramp to the full article when a story actually caught them.

Partner Controls

News partners set their own image policies. Some stories arrived with nothing, and the screen still had to work rather than degrade politely.

discovery

Voice First, Screen Second

Device Placement

Kitchen counters, nightstands, and shelves. Making coffee, half-dressed, getting kids out the door. Near the device, rarely in front of it.

Control Beyond Touch

Source-level control they could state out loud and have remembered, plus an exit ramp to the full article when a story actually caught them.

Partner Controls

News partners set their own image policies. Some stories arrived with nothing, and the screen still had to work rather than degrade politely.

early experiments

Scrolling Transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told the opposite.

early experiments

Scrolling Transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told the opposite.

early experiments

Scrolling Transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told the opposite.

early experiments

Scrolling Transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told the opposite.

The Pivot

Audio Player Alignment

I collaborated with the Music team designer who already landed on a stong audio playback screen. I leveraged it. I removed the seek bar since the audio was generated live, so nothing to scrub through. I kept the back, forward, and pause buttons as transport controls. The simplified design aligned more closely to the customer mental model, the design system, and more forgiving to develop.

The Pivot

Audio Player Alignment

I collaborated with the Music team designer who already landed on a stong audio playback screen. I leveraged it. I removed the seek bar since the audio was generated live, so nothing to scrub through. I kept the back, forward, and pause buttons as transport controls. The simplified design aligned more closely to the customer mental model, the design system, and more forgiving to develop.

The Pivot

Audio Player Alignment

I collaborated with the Music team designer who already landed on a stong audio playback screen. I leveraged it. I removed the seek bar since the audio was generated live, so nothing to scrub through. I kept the back, forward, and pause buttons as transport controls. The simplified design aligned more closely to the customer mental model, the design system, and more forgiving to develop.

The Pivot

Audio Player Alignment

I collaborated with the Music team designer who already landed on a stong audio playback screen. I leveraged it. I removed the seek bar since the audio was generated live, so nothing to scrub through. I kept the back, forward, and pause buttons as transport controls. The simplified design aligned more closely to the customer mental model, the design system, and more forgiving to develop.

DESIGN APPROACH

Decision Making Amid Ambiguity

Waiting for the design system would have cost time. So I made forward bets and structured the files so a new system could slot in. When the real system landed, I quickly refactored to match it rather than rebuild.

Early headline playback design

With player controls

Exploration more editorial style

Intro screen exploration

Design system alignment

Launch version

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting.

delivery

One Design, Eight Screens

Translating the same experience across eight configurations, two orientations, and a round display was a considerable effort. The spec covered card dimensions, image ratios, padding, and control placement for every device.

delivery

One Design, Eight Screens

Translating the same experience across eight configurations, two orientations, and a round display was a considerable effort. The spec covered card dimensions, image ratios, padding, and control placement for every device.

delivery

One Design, Eight Screens

Translating the same experience across eight configurations, two orientations, and a round display was a considerable effort. The spec covered card dimensions, image ratios, padding, and control placement for every device.

delivery

One Design, Eight Screens

Translating the same experience across eight configurations, two orientations, and a round display was a considerable effort. The spec covered card dimensions, image ratios, padding, and control placement for every device.

impact

Reach & Reactions

Alexa+ carried tens of millions of customers by February 2026, up from 100K in its first months. Smart Briefing shipped to 12M+ of them.

“

For me, the most exciting change is to Daily News briefings. —Josephine Watson, TechRadar

“

I have a renewed appreciation for Alexa, thanks to its AI overhaul. It's far more capable than its predecessor —Daniel Wroclawski, Consumer Reports

impact

Reach & Reactions

Alexa+ carried tens of millions of customers by February 2026, up from 100K in its first months. Smart Briefing shipped to 12M+ of them.

“

For me, the most exciting change is to Daily News briefings. —Josephine Watson, TechRadar

“

I have a renewed appreciation for Alexa, thanks to its AI overhaul. It's far more capable than its predecessor —Daniel Wroclawski, Consumer Reports

the context

Reach & Reactions

Alexa+ carried tens of millions of customers by February 2026, up from 100K in its first months. Smart Briefing shipped to 12M+ of them.

“

For me, the most exciting change is to Daily News briefings. —Josephine Watson, TechRadar

“

I have a renewed appreciation for Alexa, thanks to its AI overhaul. It's far more capable than its predecessor —Daniel Wroclawski, Consumer Reports

impact

Reach & Reactions

Alexa+ carried tens of millions of customers by February 2026, up from 100K in its first months. Smart Briefing shipped to 12M+ of them.

“

For me, the most exciting change is to Daily News briefings. —Josephine Watson, TechRadar

“

I have a renewed appreciation for Alexa, thanks to its AI overhaul. It's far more capable than its predecessor —Daniel Wroclawski, Consumer Reports

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.