Amazon made a big change to Alexa. The first real change since it came out over ten years ago. Now, it has the mind of a machine that can think—at least in a way. They spent billions to make it smarter. They wanted Alexa everywhere. In homes. In pockets. In lives. They wanted it to sell more things. Alexa knows you. It knows your house, your habits, your friends, the songs you play, the lights you dim. It remembers what you like and what you need. It speaks to your machines. It makes life easy, or so they say. The new name is Alexa+. A bigger, better version. More knowing. More powerful. Like everything else these days.

Subscription Model and Availability

Alexa+ comes free with Prime. Without Prime, it costs $19.99 a month. It launched Wednesday. Some will get it in March. Others will wait. That is how it goes. Panay showed what it can do. It remembers what you like. If you don’t eat meat, it knows. If you hate peanut butter, it remembers. It books dinners. It sends messages when you say so. It sees through Amazon’s eyes. Ring doorbells. Cameras. It watches, records, recalls. It reads contracts. If you want solar panels, it will tell you if they are allowed. Alexa director Mara Segal said it makes life easier. Amazon’s stock climbed. Up 2%. $217.02.

Facing the Competition: Apple and Google’s AI Race

The event revealed a secret. They called it “Banyan.” A plan to make Alexa talk better. To make it more human. Generative AI learns. It gets smarter. Alexa came after Siri. Three years late. But it made voice assistants common. People used them. Then they didn’t. Alexa stayed the same while the world changed. AI moved forward. Alexa stood still. Apple pushed ahead. They called their AI “Apple Intelligence.” It made Siri sharper. Google did the same. Their AI is called Gemini. Alexa is still there. In speakers. In homes. It answers. Plays music. Sets timers. Turns on lights when you ask. But now, it must do more.

A Smarter Alexa: What’s New in Alexa+?

The new Alexa listens better. It can handle more than one request at a time. It can act on its own. No need to ask twice. No need to ask at all. The old Alexa was simple. One command. One answer. This one is different. Smarter. More capable. Some at Amazon wanted to charge $10 a month for it. They have lost money on Alexa for years. Now, they want it back. They did not say what the final price will be. There are 500 million Alexa devices out there. A fortune waiting to be made. Or lost. If Alexa+ fails, it will cost them. Daniel Rausch, the man behind Alexa and Echo, said AI startup Anthropic helped build it. Reuters had reported that. They were right. Anthropic’s Claude is part of Alexa now.

Conclusion

The relaunch of Alexa is Amazon’s attempt to rely on AI to breathe new life into a product that was not performing well. Following years of setting timers and cracking jokes, Alexa has gone back to graduate school, and has become Alexa+ with the help of a Claude brain. It is yet to be seen whether consumers will be willing to pay $19.99 monthly for a smarter assistant. It has become a new trend in the market to prove that your voice assistant is smarter than everyone else’s and Apple, Google, and Amazon are not shy to do this. For Amazon, it is high time to show that after investing 10 years and billions of dollars, Alexa is ready to evolve from a voice assistant that can only switch on the lights to the all-powerful AI companion of the future as envisioned by the company.

FAQs

Q1: How much will Alexa+ cost me? 

The new brain-boosted assistant comes free with an Amazon Prime membership, just as an added incentive to get people to pay for Prime. To be more specific, for the Prime-averse, the monthly subscription fee for Alexa+ will be $19.99. Amazon managers, who have seen Alexa cost the company tens of billions of dollars annually for years, must hope that you will believe that is a good trade for a digital butler that now gets context.

Q2: When can I get my hands on Alexa+? 

The app was launched on Wednesday, but as is tradition with most tech products, some users will be able to use it in March while others will have to wait. Amazon has not elaborated on how they are choosing who gets the early access – maybe they are rewarding those households that have been asking Alexa some of the most ridiculous questions in the past.

Q3: What companies helped Amazon develop this new AI-powered assistant? 

Amazon hired AI startup Anthropic to assist them in the development of Alexa+ that integrated Claude AI model into the system. This was disclosed by Reuters earlier and reveals that Amazon had to bring in reinforcements in order to challenge Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini. Sometimes, even the tech giants have to call for help when the competition in the field of artificial intelligence intensifies.

Q4: What can Alexa+ actually do that’s new? 

In addition to recalling your dislike of peanut butter and meat, Alexa+ can make a restaurant reservation, analyze videos from a Ring doorbell, review a contract, and determine whether solar panels are allowed in your neighborhood. Whether it will actually sell more Amazon products remains the main question.