Amazon Alexa+ is here: price, release date, and who gets it first

Amazon's big bet on AI in Alexa is finally happening

(Credit: Max Buondonno / The Shortcut)

• 🤖 Amazon announced a new version of Alexa powered by AI

• 🦾 It’s wildly more powerful and capable than the previous version

• 🔊 It’ll arrive on nearly every Alexa-enabled device shipped

• 💰 Unfortunately, it isn’t free to use

• 📅 Here’s how much it’ll cost and when it comes out

Amazon had a big day today. At a live press event in New York City, the company announced its next generation of Alexa called Alexa+, and it’s the upgrade we’ve all been waiting for: Alexa with generative AI.

You can talk to it like a human, ask it questions, string together commands, interrupt yourself halfway through a request, and more. Amazon has injected similar AI technologies to other famous bots like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Apple Intelligence to advance what Alexa is capable of, and the results are quite impressive.

But here’s the question: when will this new version come out? Will all current Alexa devices support it, or does it require special hardware? And most important of all: how much will it cost? Here’s what we know.

Amazon Alexa+ release date and price

(Credit: Max Buondonno / The Shortcut)

Amazon says Alexa+ will arrive for the first batch of users in March. The company is putting a premium price tag on it at $19.99 per month, but that’s only for non-Prime members. If you’re subscribed to Amazon Prime, you get Alexa+ for free. It’s technically a much better deal, too; Prime costs $14.99 per month, and it’s even cheaper per month if you subscribe to the annual plan.

Alexa+ will be available first on the Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 since it’ll also focus on the visual experience. Afterward, every other Alexa-enabled device that’s ever shipped - from phones to speakers to glasses - will get it. The only exception we’ve found are first-generation Echo speakers.

Alexa+ is a massive AI upgrade

(Credit: Max Buondonno / The Shortcut)

As we detailed in our live blog, Alexa+ is far more powerful than the current version of Amazon’s voice assistant. It’s built on Amazon’s Bedrock large language models and offers an experience similar to ChatGPT’s voice mode and Google Gemini. You can talk to it with more natural language than ever before, much more like a fellow human being than a robot (Amazon called this “Alexa speak” onstage, which it hopes to get rid of moving forward).

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It can also remember more about you. Alexa+ will be a lot more personal and contextual to your life by remembering what you watch, what you buy, what your preferences are, and more. It also lets you share documents, emails, photos, and messages so you can reference things on the fly, like “What does my grandmother’s cookie recipe call for?” and “Can I install solar panels on my roof?”

You can upload personal content like this through the new Alexa.com website, as well as the new Alexa app that’s coming soon. This will help Alexa learn more about you and make it even more personal over time, which is one of the biggest advantages to using AI like this.

Alexa+ is also good at stringing together commands, preferences, and more into a single result. Alexa+ is smart enough to know your spouse is gluten-free and your daughter is vegetarian when recommending pizza places for dinner, all by simply mentioning those preferences in a previous conversation. It’s the closest Alexa has ever been to being a robot assistant for your everyday life.

It’s even more powerful thanks to all the partnerships Amazon has formed with third-party services. From media companies to apps like Uber, there’s a lot more integration with the services you use each day with Alexa+ compared to other AI chatbots, which could make a big difference for Amazon in the near future.

(Credit: Max Buondonno / The Shortcut)

It’s also equipped to handle your smart home, much like the previous version. It can control all of your devices, move content around between speakers, check your security footage for certain things, and more. A neat demo Amazon had during its event was playing “Shallow” by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga; after moving the audio from one side of the room to the next using voice commands, Alexa was asked to “play that scene from the movie,” and it was smart enough to jump to the scene in A Star is Born on a Fire TV when the actors are performing it.

Touch interactions were also demoed onstage. Alexa+ was used to generate a shopping list for banana bread ingredients, milk, and a few other loose items. While giving commands to Alexa, the presenter was able to edit the list to his heart’s content and ask Alexa to add or remove certain things, swap items, and more. it kept up well during the demo, although I’ll be curious to see how this plays out in the real world.

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It’s clear Alexa+ will be a big upgrade for Alexa users, but many Shortcut subscribers and X followers expressed concerns with security. According to Amazon, Alexa+ has “world-class privacy and security protection to your everyday interactions.” While that seems pretty vague, you will have full access to your data through the Alexa Privacy dashboard which is nice.

(Credit: Max Buondonno / The Shortcut)

This is by far the biggest upgrade Alexa has ever received, and it’ll help define the future of Amazon’s chat bot as the service begins to rebound from years of losing revenue. Whether this shift is enough to turn around the business has yet to be determined, but so far, the upgrade seems promising.

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Max Buondonno is Editor at The Shortcut. He’s been reporting on the latest consumer technology since 2015, with his work featured on CNN Underscored, ZDNET, How-To Geek, XDA, TheStreet, and more. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop and Instagram @LegendaryScoop.