Amazon Alexa+ Is About To Get Much Smarter, But Will Anybody Pay For It?

Amazon has finally announced the long-overdue upgrade of its digital assistant at an event attended by SlashGear today, giving it generative AI superpowers in the same vein as Google Gemini or Apple's Siri. The next-gen avatar will be called Alexa+, and as per the company, it is no longer a robot talker. Instead, this one is more conversational and will follow the natural language flow with contextual understanding.

A key appeal of Alexa+ is the self-learning approach, which means it gains a better understanding of its role in a household the more users engage with it. The company says that over time, it will learn everything from a family member's dietary preferences to their weekly routines and medicine details. Since this is a generative AI upgrade, Alexa+ will also offer a certain level of agentic capabilities at tasks such as planning for an upcoming trip, helping kids with their study, and more.

Another notable aspect is memory. The AI assistant will remember details from previous conversations and will recall contextual details about them during human-machine interactions. Amazon is also offering a deeper integration with the mesh of smart home services in a person's home. For example, asking it to "take the music playback downstairs" will automatically switch to the speakers located in the prescribed destination. It will also make sure that music is not played on certain speakers depending on users' requests. There's also a new Shazam-like system, where users can directly ask Alexa+ to find a certain song that was playing during the end credits of a film or TV show.

Alexa+ will make its way to compatible devices via a redesigned user interface with a dash of proximity sensing superpowers. For example, the Echo Show would normally show a carousel of photos or other such personalized content on its screen, but as users approach the device, it automatically transitions to a Home Screen where they can find relevant details such as upcoming calendar events, music, and a "For You" panel that is essentially a holistic take on what users might find interesting alongside their core smart home controls. The idea sounds somewhat similar to the AI-driven Now Brief system detailed in our Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra review.

Amazon is also betting big on routines — aka, custom if-this-then-that automations. So far, users had to rely on janky software to create Alexa routines. With the arrival of Alexa+, users can simply narrate their request and the AI assistant will create one for them. This is going to be a game-changer, especially for households with a healthy bunch of smart home devices. 

The company is tying the newfound capabilities to the Ring ecosystem, as well. Alexa+ will keep a tab on camera events and will show a highlight reel to users that catches them up on the whole day, all through voice-based queries. Likewise, users can directly narrate a scene and Alexa+ will instantly jump to that particular moment in a film or TV show on their Fire TV. "Alexa+ helps you stay organized during busy days, provides detailed answers tailored to your needs, and handles everything from project planning to solving daily challenges—all through natural conversation," says Amazon.

The big catch to it all is a price tag on the next-gen digital assistant. Access to Alexa+ is locked behind a subscription that will have you spending $19.99 per month, the same asking price as ChatGPT Plus or Gemini Advanced (both of which we've extensively compared). Thankfully, it will be available as a free add-on for all prime subscribers. As far as compatibility goes, it will follow a phased rollout format, with preference given to Amazon hardware that features a display. Amazon will begin the U.S. rollout of Alexa+ in the next few weeks, initially focusing on households with Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 devices. Further expansion to additional users will occur in phases over the subsequent months."

If you don't have the aforementioned devices, Amazon suggests that you pick up a unit in order to get early access to Alexa. Should you pay for it? Well, that depends on how fed up you are from the current-gen Alexa. But if you see the appeal of an AI chatbot that is smarter with not only device controls, but that can also be a helpful assistant for the other people in your home while saving you from the drudgery of buggy controls and complex software, Alexa+ will be worth it.

Amazon already has a deep ecosystem covering millions of first-party as well as partner devices in homes across the world. For people looking to harmonize and ease their smart home experience, it would make sense to just stick with their Prime subscription and get complementary access to Alexa+ while at it.