I've Always Tried To Avoid Using AI, But Amazon Alexa+ Could Win Me Over

I'm someone who's been skeptical of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant (slash service) ever since its inception. Siri, too, if I'm being honest. I wasn't all that keen on the idea of something always listening to me or learning my habits for the sake of recommendations — purchases or otherwise.

So it came as a big surprise when, after watching the official Alexa+ presentation today and sitting down for a few hands-off demonstrations, I found myself conflicted. I shouldn't want to invite Alexa into my home, but a much smarter Alexa+? It's proving difficult to resist the temptation. Especially considering it'll be included as an Amazon Prime perk (or, alternatively, $19.99 per month) once the service eventually rolls out sometime in the coming months.

It's not all voice-assisted sunshine and rainbows, of course. There are some aspects of the updated service that don't really mean anything to me. And some others I flat out don't want to touch. But much of its advertised and demonstrated utility is tough to ignore.

An overarching point of the Alexa+ unveiling was just how much more "natural" it will be to use. To Amazon's credit, it certainly seems like this will be the case for the most part. Alexa+ looks to have a much better time with parsing what you're saying, and even if it got a word wrong here and there, it was still able to determine context and intent despite that. However, there were a few moments where Alexa+ seemed to struggle in ways that could get frustrating.

In a kitchen-focused demo, for instance, it missed "salmon" as a specific ingredient, even though the other ingredients that were mentioned later in the same sentence came through. That said, Alexa+ did do a good job of course-correcting after the presenter stepped in and verbally explained that something was misunderstood.

That's another element to Alexa+ that was pretty impressive: The ability to continue a "conversation" by keeping track of commands and queries that were made previously. Just how effective this will be in a mass release remains to be seen, but in a relatively controlled environment Alexa+ didn't have any trouble continuing from questions about kids' soccer scheduling to looking up info on when the parent is on the hook for bringing snacks. Then creating reminders, when asked.

My main criticism of a more conversational Alexa is that it's maybe a bit too conversational. I don't see myself wanting an AI crowdsourced breakdown on how decorated a particular musician is when I just want to figure out the name of a song, you know?

Like vanilla Alexa, Alexa+ can be used with a lot of connected smart devices. Phones, an Echo Dot, TVs, that sort of thing. What's more interesting is how it was able to fairly quickly and smoothly shift between them.

Ask about a song based on a scene in a particular movie and, every time it was attempted, Alexa+ figured it out. But then it was also able to play that song on connected speakers, with the presenter able to switch between multiple audio outputs by referencing different rooms — or even contextual indicators, like referencing "doing dishes," whereupon Alexa+ understood that meant the kitchen.

Outside of physical compatibility, Amazon also pointed out Alexa+ compatibility with a variety of other services such as Spotify or Netflix. It plays into those previously-mentioned features like figuring out a song or movie title by then being able to pull up that media. Typically on your hardware of choice, as long as Alexa+ is able to access it.

My brain is weird, in that it has a difficult time forgetting things like movie titles, actor names, and commercial jingles, but while I might not get much out of this functionality I do see how it would come in handy for others. That, and there was a bit of enjoyment to be had watching the presenter toss a vague movie synopsis at Alexa+ and watching it pull up the film on the first try.

Most people past a certain age or relationship status are familiar with one of the toughest parts of the day: Figuring out what to eat. This is made all the more difficult when you're working with limited ingredients, not a lot of cash, a set amount of time to cook and eat something, or have to deal with dietary restrictions or food preferences.

In all seriousness, watching someone tell Alexa+ they plan on having friends over for dinner (who have particular food preferences), ask for recipe recommendations, then put together a shopping list was impressive enough. But then having them list a handful of ingredients they currently have on-hand in order to get more recipe suggestions, and have Alexa+ remember and consider those same food preferences from earlier, was very cool.

Probably cooler than it really should be, yes, but we deal with a lot of food nuance and uncertainty in our home. So something like this feels like a potential game-changer. And this is on top of having Alexa+ set up reminders based around how long a given recipe is expected to take to complete, versus when dinner is planned for.

So much of what Amazon showed off at its Alexa+ reveal event was genuinely eye-opening for me. All the same, I do have some reservations that I can't quite shake.

A lot of its improved features are dependent on you already owning and using other smart devices, but outside of some smartphones, a Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2nd Gen), and a home security camera there's not much we could connect it to. So, I can scratch off the interesting speaker control, and your use from it will depend on how Amazon-friendly your other smart home tech already is.

Most of all, though, it's the food recommendations. For as objectively useful as something like that would be for us, I have concerns when it comes to food sensitivities. Obviously it's something that could (and really, should) be double-checked by a person before diving in, but I'm not sure how much faith I can put in Alexa+ to catch and avoid food with a handful of very specific ingredients. After all, it's not like AIs aren't prone to hallucinations.

Then again, Alexa+ is going to be free with Prime when it rolls out, and — like lots of people — we already have Prime. That low barrier to entry, more than anything, could give Alexa+ the edge when it comes to gaining mass market traction in homes like mine.