It’s been 10 years since Amazon first introduced its friendly voice assistant Alexa, following in the footsteps of Apple’s Siri (2011) and followed itself by Google Assistant (2016). A lot has changed in that time — and a lot of frustrating (pity the household with an inhabitant named Alexis), sometimes very creepy interactions, have ensued. But despite a few setbacks, there are now 600 million Alexa-powered devices out there in the world, according to Amazon, and now Alexa is getting even better at her job thanks to advances in generative AI.
“The first time I spoke to Alexa, it felt like the future had arrived,” said Panos Panay, SVP of Devices and Services at Amazon in a blog post announcing the release of the new, upgraded Alexa+. “I walked into the room, asked Alexa to play A Sky Full of Stars, and it just worked. As a product maker, it struck me that this was technology at its best — doing what the customer wants effortlessly, intuitively and naturally — and I wanted all the technology in my life to work that way. The latest advancements in generative AI have unlocked new possibilities — enabling us to reimagine the experience in our pursuit of making customers’ lives better and easier every day.”
In fact, Amazon is so excited about this upgraded version of its voice assistant that it’s making Alexa+ the newest Prime member benefit (non-Prime members can access the service for $19.99 per month). And Alexa is now going to be popping up in more places than ever — she’s already available on a range of home and office devices, as well as increasingly in cars, and Amazon has launched a new Alexa+ mobile app to make her available anywhere users are with their smartphone (so everywhere).
“You can start a conversation with Alexa+ on your Echo device, continue on the go with your phone or in the car and pick it up on your computer,” explained Panay. “Alexa+ remembers the context and can continue the conversation across any of your endpoints.”
Advertisement
Alexa+ will start rolling out in the U.S. in the next few weeks during an early access period, and then subsequently in waves over the coming months, with prioritization for Echo Show 8, 10, 15 and 21 device owners.
Alexa+: Like an Insightful, Incredibly Helpful Friend
With new “agentic” offerings from gen AI startups like OpenAI and Perplexity giving Alexa a run for her money (as well as driving consumer demand for virtual assistants in general), Alexa was due for a glow-up.
According to Panay, Alexa+ is now more “conversational, smarter and personalized.” Among the tasks she can help with are keeping you entertained, helping you learn, keeping you organized, summarizing complex topics, conversing about virtually anything, managing and protecting your home, making reservations, and helping you search, find or buy virtually any item online, as well as make useful suggestions based on your interests.
Enhancements include:
- More natural conversation: Whether consumers speak in half-formed thoughts, use colloquial expressions or explore complex ideas, Alexa+ promises to understand what they mean and be able to respond relevantly. “It feels less like interacting with technology, and more like engaging with an insightful friend,” said Panay;
- More powerful task orchestration across a range of service providers: Alexa+ is able to orchestrate across tens of thousands of services and devices through the development of “experts” — groups of systems, capabilities, APIs and instructions that accomplish specific types of tasks for customers. With these experts at her disposal, Alexa+ can control consumers’ smart home with products from brands such as Philips Hue and Roborock; make reservations or appointments with OpenTable and Vagaro; explore discographies and play music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music and iHeartRadio; order groceries from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market; order delivery from Grubhub and Uber Eats; remind you when tickets go on sale on Ticketmaster; and use Ring to alert you if someone is approaching your house;
- Better device interconnectivity: Alexa+ can now better coordinate tasks across Alexa devices. For example, you could be eating dinner in the kitchen and tell Alexa to set up the show you want to watch on the Fire TV in your living room; you can move music to different speakers around your home; and you can use Ring to see if your package has been delivered or if anyone has walked the dog;
- Agentic capabilities: Alexa+ introduces agentic capabilities that enable her to navigate the internet in a self-directed way in order to complete tasks on your behalf behind the scenes. If, for example, you need to get your oven fixed, Alexa+ can navigate the web, use Thumbtack to find a service provider, authenticate him or her, arrange the repair and come back to tell you it’s done, with no need to supervise or intervene; and
- Enhanced personalization: Alexa+ is already highly personalized, based on information such as what you’ve already bought, listened to, watched, where you like to have things shipped and how you typically pay. Now consumers can also ask Alexa to remember things to make the experience even more personalized. They can share details such as family recipes, important dates, facts or dietary preferences and she will apply that knowledge to take useful action. For example, if you are planning a dinner for the family, Alexa+ can remember that you love pizza, your daughter is vegetarian and your partner is gluten-free, to suggest a recipe or restaurant. She may even take proactive action based on that knowledge, for example, suggesting you start your commute early when there’s heavy traffic or telling you a gift you wanted to buy is on sale.
- Users can further add to Alexa’s knowledge by sharing documents, emails, photos and messages for Alexa to remember, summarize or take action on. For example, you could send a picture of a live music schedule and have Alexa add the details to your calendar; upload study materials and ask Alexa to turn them into a quiz; or forward emails from the kids’ school to Alexa add important dates to your calendar.
Panay also promised that Alexa+ was designed with privacy and security top of mind. Important information such as a users’ interactions with Alexa+ and various settings in the Alexa Privacy dashboard are centralized in one location for easy access, and Alexa+ is built on the AWS cloud infrastructure, which has a whole host of privacy protections.
