The news comes roughly one year after Fire TV-competitor Roku launched its own free, streaming news service. According to rumors, Amazon is looking to provide local news coverage, which The Information points out, could be a way to distinguish its offering from Roku's.

Amazon hasn't officially announced its plans, and a few key questions are unanswered. We don't know if Amazon has reached any programming deals, if the news content will be exclusive to the app or what the timeline looks like. But if the news app succeeds, Amazon might integrate it into its Alexa offerings -- that could tie in nicely with plans for Alexa-enabled ads.