While a smarter Siri may not have made an appearance at WWDC, Alexa Plus, Amazon’s generative AI-based upgrade to its voice assistant, is finally being made available to the public.
No one at The Verge has access to it yet, but Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum told me that more than a million people already have access to it – up from “hundreds of thousands” just last month. And while it was hard to find anyone with access at first, there is now evidence that Alexa Plus is finally available, judging by recent posts on Reddit and Facebook.
After launching in late March, Alexa Plus is now rolling out to customers with Echo smart speakers and displays “at an increasing rate,” and the company will “make it even more widely available in the summer,” Sveum says.
The slow rollout is due to Panos Panay’s insistence that all issues with Alexa Plus be resolved before the full release, according to a recent profile of Amazon’s new head of devices and services in The Wall Street Journal. It reports that “he knows that getting Alexa+ right is crucial because it will be available to millions of people who depend on the technology across multiple devices. This is a very public rollout.”
First announced in September 2023, the super-powered Alexa has faced more than a year of delays, reportedly due in part to difficulties implementing the new technology on top of the existing Alexa assistant.
It was finally relaunched under Panay’s leadership last February as an all-new assistant, and was scheduled to launch to US users in March as part of an early access program. When it eventually comes out in full, the new assistant will cost $19.99 per month and will be free for Prime members.
However, it looks like it’s not quite ready for prime time yet. Sveum tells me that several features announced at the presentation are still not part of the early access program. These include the ability to ask Alexa to “skip to your favorite scene on Fire TV; order groceries hands-free; order delivery through Grubhub; schedule your next spa visit; brainstorm for the perfect gift; set personalized reminders and routines for your family; create personalized music-on-the-fly” and “Access Alexa+ in your browser.” The latter feature seems important because personal computers are where Alexa has been trying to gain traction for a long time, and where it needs to be to compete with ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.
Sveum says that these missing features “will be delivered over the coming weeks and months,” and that nearly 90 percent of the announced features are already available in early access. These include a larger, more conversational voice assistant feature that I briefly tested at the presentation. Plus, the ability to ask Alexa to remember important details you tell her and to recall things from documents you’ve sent her (Alexa now has her own email address).
Alexa Plus can also manage your calendar and move music from room to room, Sveum says. It can order you an Uber, find tickets to an upcoming event, and find someone to come fix something using Thumbtack. To control your smart home, you can create Alexa Routines with your voice, control multiple devices at once, and customize your own smart home widget on Echo Show devices. Smart cooking timers also work in real time, Sveum says.
“Many customers tell us they enjoy having natural, casual conversations with Alexa. This allows them to fulfill more complex requests, such as controlling multiple smart home devices at the same time, diving deep into music or trending topics,” says Sveum. “We’re also getting a lot of positive feedback about how easy and useful it is to do things with it, like coordinate calendars, make dinner reservations, and take care of weekly meal planning.”
There have been no official reviews of Alexa Plus yet (Amazon’s PR department seems to be keeping this issue under wraps), but one of USA Today’s reviewers got access to it through the early access program. He was mostly satisfied with his experience, writing that he “was very pleased and sometimes even amazed.”
That’s also the general vibe in the Facebook and Reddit user groups from those who have access, but there are obviously some bugs to work out. “It’s early days, but I feel like it’s a little closer to what I have with ChatGPT,” said one Reddit user.
Another user agreed, noting that they liked the way Alexa remembered things they said and could play them back. But they weren’t happy that Alexa couldn’t access some of the smart temperature sensors that were available with the previous version of Alexa. One user said that controlling multiple smart home devices at the same time was impressive, but another said that they went back to regular Alexa because the Plus version couldn’t control their smart air fryer.
Controlling smart home devices is obviously going to be a huge hurdle here. Existing smart voice assistants, with their command and control structure, can generally be used correctly (assuming they can hear/understand you). However, the move to these more conversational, intuitive assistants is potentially fraught with danger, especially when it comes to managing things in your home. Still, I’m looking forward to trying it out for myself.
