Amazon is finally pushing ahead into a new era of digital assistants with Alexa+, a next-gen version of Alexa that is powered by generative AI capabilities. It is more talkative with natural language capabilities, comes with a wide range of agentic chops, and can turn voice commands into routines, among a broad set of new capabilities.
The AI upgrades for Alexa+ come courtesy of Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude AI models. Amazon says the next-gen assistant will not only make the conversations sound more natural, but also rewarding. For example, it can remember the preferences and favorites of users.
Thanks to a memory system, similar to what Google Gemini got recently, it can recall those details when needed. Users can seamlessly carry their conversation with Alexa+ from an Echo speaker to their phone and end it on a connected interface in their car, all thanks to the contextual awareness and memory capabilities.
How can I access Alexa+?
Alexa+ will be free for Prime subscribers and will start rolling out to users in the US as an early access program starting next month. Alexa+ will be available via a new mobile app that will be available for Android and iOS devices. You can already sign up for early access here.
Amazon is also launching a web client at Alexa.com that will offer access via a browser. If you don’t have a Prime subscription, Amazon will charge you $19.99 for Alexa+ access.
As far as hardware support goes, access will be limited to the Echo Show series of devices (8, 10, 15, and 21-inch models). Once you have any of these devices in your possession, Alexa+ will become available across all your Echo devices. There are, however, a few exceptions. Following is the list of non-eligible devices:
- Echo Dot 1st Gen
- Echo 1st Gen
- Echo Plus 1st Gen
- Echo Tap
- Echo Show 1st Gen
- Echo Show 2nd Gen
- Echo Spot 1st Gen
What’s new with the Alexa+ assistant?
“The more you use Alexa+, the better your experience will get,” says Amazon. A notable upgrade for the next-gen assistant is its ability to seamlessly perform tasks across different platforms, such as GrubHub, Yelp, Amazon, Apple Music, Netflix, and more.
For example, you can ask the assistant to make a restaurant reservation and text your friend about it, as well. These agentic capabilities will essentially allow Alexa+ to perform tasks on a different company’s website on behalf of users.
If that sounds familiar, well, that’s because OpenAI aims to pull off something similar with its Operator tool, but at a much higher cost than the premium Amazon is asking for Alexa+ access from non-Prime customers.
It will fill up all the details across any third-party service, authenticate the user identity, and get the job done. Alexa+ will order groceries, play music from third-party platforms, book appointments, keep an eye on ticket sales, and catch up users on the Ring Camera activity across the day.
You can just tell it to call a plumber, and it will do so after performing a web search and fixing a repair visit. Alexa+ can book an Uber, keep an eye on deals, find tickers, help with travel planning, and more — all thanks to API integrations with partner brands and services.
The company is also giving it more of an AI chatbot spin, allowing Alexa+ to pull information in real time from reliable sources such as Reuters, Associated Press, The Washington Post, among others. It can also generate images using text/voice prompts, and even create music, thanks to partnership with Suno.
Taking a leaf out of the Google Gemini playbook (and the upcoming app intent system for Apple’s Siri), Alexa+ will turn voice commands into actions as well as routines. For example, you can simply tell it to create an automation for controlling certain devices, and it will do so, without having users go through a complex app-based setup.
A companion for everyone, and everything
“Alexa+ is designed to take action, and is able to orchestrate across tens of thousands of services and devices—which, to our knowledge, has never been done at this scale,” says Amazon. In the realm of smart home control, Alexa+ is adding some notable new tricks.
For example, users can tell it to keep the TV in their lobby ready and play a certain TV show while they are on their way. It can tap into the live footage from a Ring camera to tell if a package has been delivered, and seamlessly move music playback to any specified speaker in the house.
Amazon is giving a big push to Alexa+ as a smarter companion for every member of the house. For example, the underlying large language model and deals with content partners allows it to offer solutions in the same way ChatGPT or Gemini answer your queries.
“You can also add to her knowledge by sharing documents, emails, photos, and messages—via a desktop browser, the mobile app, or even via email—for Alexa to remember, summarize, or take action on,” adds Amazon. Alexa is also getting file comprehension capabilities to compete with the products from Google and OpenAI.
To that end, users can upload a ticket picture and have Alexa+ add it to their calendar by automatically gleaning all the necessary details from the ticket. Likewise, it can turn education material into interactive quizzes for children.
It can also do the reverse and catch up users on their schedule by looking at their calendar entries. The new Alexa+ Daily Briefings feature offers a quick breakdown of all the trending events, while the For You widget notifies users about all their upcoming alerts and commitments.
Going far deeper than Alexa ever could
Coming to the entertainment part, users can directly ask it questions such as “play the scene from a movie where Tom Hanks runs a marathon” and it will automatically launch and fast forward to that particular film scene. This capability has been deeply integrated at the heart of Amazon’s Prime Video service.
Alexa+ also gets a new natural language search feature that lets users search a specific photo and video in their gallery by simply describing it. For parents, there’s a dedicated Alexa+ Kids experience that restricts certain activities for kids, such as voice-activated shopping and mature multimedia content.
The next-gen assistant is also getting certain vision-based capabilities, as well. For example, via a camera, it can take a look at the groceries, and order what’s needed or describe recipes based on what’s available at hand. It ties into automation, too.
Alexa+ can also recognize faces, or other items, and accordingly take actions. For example, users can just narrate a reminder such as “When you see the dog, inform me through the study room speaker.” Amazon has taken the app out of the equation when it comes to routines.
Users can simply narrate multi-step, multi-device control plans, and it will be converted into a routine automatically. There are also options for creating long-term personalised routines based on how the weather is, or progress within a week or month.
Overall, Alexa+ sounds like a massive upgrade, one that focuses as much on next-gen AI-driven upgrades as it does on practical aspects of using a digital assistant to control a wide range of smart home devices. It’s a cohesive approach, but one with a lot more granular controls that are just a sentence away from kicking into action.
