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Amazon held its first major product event of the year on Wednesday and, as expected, it was largely about Alexa. The company first announced its next-gen, AI-powered voice assistant back in 2023, but technical issues forced Amazon to delay its formal unveiling and rollout. 

An Alexa upgrade means that Amazon has a swathe of new devices ready to support the latest version of the voice assistant. Amazon’s hardware chief, Panos Panay, and his devices and services team were at the event to show off Alexa+.

Here’s a rundown of everything Amazon announced at its first devices event of 2025:

Alexa+

After lots (and lots) of boring rambling about generative AI from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy at Wednesday’s event, Panay took the mic to start sharing the actual news. Alexa+ is the name of the company’s upgraded voice assistant. The company will start to roll it out next month, beginning with Echo Show devices. It costs $20 per month, but Prime members get access at no extra cost. Prime currently costs $15 per month, so we have to wonder if a price increase is coming there.

Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational and useful across compatible devices. It can remember your preferences, such as the types of food you like and dislike when asking for a recipe.

Panay claimed that, among other things, smart home management “has transformed with Alexa+.” You can use the voice assistant to, for instance, move music from an Echo device to another speaker or a TV, or jump to a certain scene in a movie that’s on Prime Video. 

Alexa+ can detect your tone and mood. In a live demo, it appeared to try to help Panay remain calm during his presentation. Amazon claims the upgraded voice assistant can answer questions about footage captured with Ring cameras, photos taken with an Echo Show, emails, files such as PDFs, hand-written notes, your calendar, upcoming sports games and much more. Alexa+ can use a service called Suno (which record labels have sued for scraping their music to train its AI modes) to generate custom songs on the fly.

Much like OpenAI has for ChatGPT, Amazon has partnered with a number of news organizations with the aim of answering questions about a variety of topics with current information. Other partners include Uber for ordering rides, OpenTable for booking a restaurant reservation, Spotify, Sonos, Samsung, Xbox, Tidal, Dyson, NASA and “tens of thousands” more. There’s Amazon Fresh integration for grocery ordering, and you can see what’s in your cart on your screen.

Elsewhere, Alexa+ has some features that are apparently kid-friendly. The voice assistant can use genAI to tell kids customized stories based on what they want to hear about. It can also answer questions they have (hopefully without any of those incorrect or false results that delayed Alexa+).

Panay led into the announcement and demos by noting that Alexa, as it stands, can be frustrating to use but generative AI can help to mitigate those annoyances. He added that an AI chatbot wouldn’t be sufficient for Amazon’s vision for Alexa and that people need something easy to use that allows them to “actually take action.” With Alexa+, Panay claimed that the “intimidation factor” of genAI is no more. Sure!

Alexa.com and new phone apps

There are other ways to access Alexa+ other than on an Echo device. Amazon revealed that you’ll be able to use the upgraded voice assistant via alexa.com, which looks very basic at the time of writing. Seriously, the screenshot above is all that’s on the website, which looks like it was knocked together in five minutes. That’ll surely change soon, as a demo at the event indicated that you’ll be able to type in queries. Amazon is also revamping the Alexa iOS and Android apps to include access to the upgraded assistant.

New devices

There was diddly squat on this front. It was widely expected that Amazon would introduce new hardware to go along with Alexa+, such as fresh Echo Buds, Echo speakers, smart displays and so on. 

But nope! The event was all about the upgraded voice assistant which, at least to start with, requires a screen like an Echo Show, smartphone or computer to use. However, the company says Alexa+ will run on nearly every Alexa-compatible device it has released.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/everything-announced-at-amazons-alexa-ai-event-164613305.html?src=rss 

Amazon just held an event in New York City to reveal the long-awaited revamp of its Alexa chatbot. This refreshed assistant can perform many new tasks, thanks to some AI wizardry, and there are a few different ways for consumers to access the digital companion. There’s voice activation with Echo devices, of course, but the company has also built a dedicated web portal for Alexa+.

This portal will allow Amazon customers to interact with Alexa+ without having to boot up the app or interact with a smart speaker or smart display. This could be handy for making adjustments while at work or for those who feel comfortable drafting lengthy queries with a traditional keyboard. Consumers will also be able to continue using the app, but Amazon promises a redesign in the near future to accommodate the new features offered by Alexa+.

For the uninitiated, Alexa+ is a juiced up version of the long-standing chatbot. It leverages conversational AI and integration with Amazon services to assist users in a number of new ways. It has contextual awareness, so it can remember earlier parts of a conversation, and can complete relatively complex tasks. The company showed off demos of the assistant finding recipes, booking dinner reservations, searching for the correct part of a movie and a whole lot more.

It looks pretty cool, but it’s also fairly expensive. Alexa+ begins rolling out over the next few weeks to select Echo Show devices and costs $20 per month. However, it’s free for Prime subscribers. Prime currently costs $15 per month in the US. Hopefully that price won’t be rising with the inclusion of Alexa+.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/amazons-ai-heavy-alexa-will-be-accessible-on-the-web-164724844.html?src=rss 

Following years of development, Amazon’s next-generation digital assistant is nearly ready for public use. Panos Panay, senior vice president of devices and services, demoed Alexa+ at the company’s 2025 devices event.  

The model powering Alexa+ can detect tone and mood and respond accordingly, with a completely new voice — one that sounds more natural. Moreover, it’s only necessary to say “Alexa” once to wake the assistant, and it will then follow the conversation. Panay said Alexa+ has contextual awareness, with the ability to “remember” earlier parts of a conversation. “There’s no more Alexa speak” with Alexa+, Panay said. “You can have almost any conversation — that intimidation factor of AI is gone.” 

In one of the more impressive demos Amazon showed off, Panay asked Alexa+ to play a song without actually naming it properly. “What’s the song Bradley Cooper sings.. it’s like a duet?” Alexa+ correctly answered “Shallow,” and said Cooper sings it with Lady Gaga in A Star is Born. Panay then asked Alexa to “move” the music to the “right side of the room,” and the assistant properly identified the correct speaker and played the music there. According to Panay, it will even understand requests like “play the music everywhere but don’t wake the baby.” In that case, Alexa+ will be able to reason that it shouldn’t cast music to the nursery. 

On first glance, Alexa+ also offers much deeper (and smarter) integration with Amazon’s disparate services. For instance, when watching Prime Video it’s possible to jump to a specific scene using details like the name of an actor or character, with no need to manually fast forward or rewind through the footage. It’s possible to search through Ring footage in much the same way. During his demo, Panay asked Alexa+ to help him remember if someone walked the family dog recently, and the assistant correctly jumped to the correct clip. 

That level of integration should extend to third-party apps with Amazon offering new tools to companies like Uber, Grubhub and OpenTable to allow Alexa+ to access information from their platforms intelligently. In one demo, Amazon showed how Alexa+ was able to make a reservation on OpenTable and then add a reminder to the user’s calendar.    

Alexa+ will come included with Amazon Prime. Amazon will also offer the enhanced digital assistant separately for $20 per month. For context, Prime currently costs $15 per month in the US. The company will begin rolling out early access to Alexa+ starting next month, with availability expanding over the coming months in waves. To use Alexa+, you’ll need a device with a screen. If you don’t own an Echo Show 8, 10, 15 or 21, you can buy one of those smart displays now and you’ll be among the first to get early access as Amazon rolls out Alexa+ to more people.   

Developing…

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/alexa-is-a-smarter-more-conversational-ai-version-of-amazons-digital-assistant-154349563.html?src=rss