Amazon has finally introduced the artificial intelligence (AI) version of its voice assistant on Wednesday. Dubbed Alexa+, it now comes with contextual understanding, can better control smart home appliances, is personalised to a user’s behaviour, and also gets agentic capabilities. Alexa+ will be available as a standalone service as well as bundled with Amazon Prime subscription. The tech giant first announced its plans to build an AI-powered voice assistant in 2023, however, a report in June 2024 claimed that the company was struggling to add AI capabilities to Alexa.
Amazon Unveils Alexa+ Voice Assistant
In a newsroom post, Panos Panay, SVP of Devices & Services at Amazon announced the AI-powered upgrade to Alexa. Panay joined the e-commerce giant in October 2203 after spending 19 years at Microsoft and helping build the company’s Surface devices. He was reportedly hired by Amazon to oversee the Alexa+ project. The generative AI-powered Alexa+ enhances the existing features of the voice assistant and makes it more “conversational, smarter, and personalised,” claimed Panay.
It can answer queries, complete smart home appliance-based tasks, and converse with users. The Verge reported that Alexa+ is a model-agnostic system. This means while it is equipped with a foundation model to build its architecture (Amazon Nova model), it can also choose third-party AI models best suited for a task via Amazon Bedrock. The company reportedly highlighted that Alexa+ leverages Anthropic’s large language models.
Panay claimed that Alexa+ can make reservations or appointments online, follow complex commands to control smart home devices, find and play music from streaming services such as Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music based on vague descriptions, order groceries and food online, and even remind users when tickets for a particular event goes online.
Alexa Plus interface
Photo Credit: Amazon
Alexa+ is also equipped with agentic capabilities. The voice assistant can complete tasks on the Internet on the user’s behalf. For instance, if a user needs to get their oven fixed, they can command Alexa and it will search on the web, discover relevant service providers, authenticate, arrange the repair, and inform the user about the details. Amazon says the entire process will be automated and the user will not have to supervise its actions.
Personalisation is also being improved with Alexa+. The AI-powered voice assistant can access users’ activities across Amazon services to know shipping addresses, payment preferences, and content they typically watch. Additionally, users can also tell the voice assistant to remember certain details such as important dates, dietary preferences, and more. Alexa will remember this and its future responses will be tailored around that.
Alexa+ will also improve the way the voice assistant manages smart home devices. It can now proactively let users know if a package was delivered or someone visited their home. It can also remember future commands and execute them at a given time.
It also comes with computer vision, which means users can upload documents and images and it can analyse the content, summarise them, and even answer queries about them.
Panay stated that Alexa+ will be available to users everywhere the voice assistant is present. Additionally, a new Android and iOS app as well as a new website is also being introduced for the generative AI-based voice assistant. When synced, users will be able to start a conversation on one platform and continue it on another one.
In a few weeks, Amazon will begin rolling out the Alexa+ voice assistant. The initial launch will offer the AI-powered voice assistant in the US via early access. It will first be available in Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21, and later expanded to more devices and platforms. Users will be able to access Alexa+ at the price of $19.99 (roughly Rs. 1,740) per month. However, those already subscribed to Amazon Prime will get it for free.
