Yesterday, Reuters published an article titled “Weeks after Amazon’s Alexa+ AI launch, a conundrum: Where are the users?”, which detailed the difficulty of finding first-hand accounts of the AI assistant’s use on the Internet. The Verge reached out to Amazon for comment on the story, and the company responded that the idea that Alexa Plus is unavailable is “simply false.”
Here’s the full – and rather blunt – statement on the matter, provided by Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum in an email to The Verge:
“It is simply not correct to say that Alexa+ is not available to customers – that statement is false. Hundreds of thousands of users have access to Alexa+, and we are constantly inviting new users who have requested early access.”
Sveum also shared a screenshot of what the email invitation should look like.
Alexa Plus is an artificial intelligence generative version of Alexa that Amazon announced in February and is free for Amazon Prime subscribers or $19.99 per month for everyone else.
While Reuters does not claim that Alexa Plus is not yet available to customers, it quotes an analyst as saying: “There doesn’t seem to be anyone who actually has it.”
The outlet also reported that its attempts to find real users of Alexa Plus proved futile, writing that it “scoured dozens of news sites, YouTube, TikTok, X, BlueSky and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, as well as Amazon’s Twitch and reviews of Echo voice assistant devices on Amazon.com.” The agency added that it had spoken to two people who wrote on Reddit claiming to have used Alexa Plus, but they “did not provide Reuters with hard evidence and their identities could not be confirmed.”
Nevertheless, Engadget reported today that a wave of emails were sent out on Friday inviting Amazon Alexa users to try out Alexa Plus. The publication also reported that an Amazon spokesperson said that “hundreds of thousands” of customers have tried the assistant.
Amazon began rolling out its early access program to a handful of customers in late March. At the time, it lacked features such as the ability to order takeout from Grubhub using conversational context, or to identify family members and remind them of chores. The page on Amazon’s website states that some features are still “coming soon,” such as the ability to access Alexa Plus in a web browser, on a Fire TV, or on an Amazon tablet. The company said it is prioritizing those who own certain Echo Show devices over others.
