Alexa is about to get way more useful
The new voice of Alexa is cheery, smarter and more helpful than ever thanks to AI.
At an event in New York City, Amazon unveiled its biggest upgrade to Alexa since launching a decade ago.
Alexa is now on over 600 million devices worldwide.
Amazon rebuilt Alexa from the ground up with AI to make it more conversational. No more memorizing commands!
The new service is called Alexa+. It learns your preferences, remembers past conversations, and even stores documents for future reference – sort of like an AI-powered memory bank.
A new Alexa app and website at Alexa.com will let you interact with the assistant in more ways than ever.
At launch, Alexa+ will connect with over 10,000 services and devices, including Uber, OpenTable, Grubhub, and more.
The goal? Make voice commands more powerful – whether it’s shopping, booking event tickets, ordering groceries, adding calendar events, or even sending texts.
The idea is closer than ever to the vision of a true AI assistant, but time will tell how useful it really is.
Alexa+ costs $20 a month. It’s free for Prime members and launches in March.
“[The pricing] may end up foreshadowing a price increase in Prime. We’ll see how it goes, but for right now, it’s a good way to avoid the discussion, just get people to use it and we’ll see what happens,” said Mike Feibus, an analyst with FeibusTech.
Owners of Echo devices with screens will get priority access. Alexa+ launches in March, and you can sign up for early access at Amazon.com/NewAlexa.