It’s been more than 10 years since Amazon launched Alexa and the Echo. While the smart speaker has come to dominate our homes, and popularise the smart home, Alexa isn’t always as smart as you might hope.
Amazon hopes to change that with the launch of Alexa Plus (officially written as Alexa+), which uses generative AI to improve the way the smart assistant interacts with you, as well as adding additional features.
Better conversations
One of the issues with the original voice assistant is ‘Alexa Speak’, where phrases have to be said in a certain way to get the right response. That’s often fine for simple jobs, but using Alexa can be complicated.
With Alexa Plus, the promise is that the assistant will understand context and meaning, allowing natural language to be used. What’s more, Alexa Plus learns how you and your family use it, learning your favourite entertainment and any dietary requirements, and personalising responses.
Natural language means that Alexa Plus can respond to requests in different ways. Currently, if you want to play a song, you have to know the name of the track and the artist; with Alexa Plus you can ask for a song in many different ways. For example, Amazon says that you “can search for that song you heard during the credits of a TV show without knowing the artist or song title”.
Similary, Prime Video on Fire TV has been upgraded, so that you can jump to scene in a TV show or a film just be describing it. The example Amazon used was to say, “’what’s that movie where Bradley Cooper sings a duet? Jump to that scene…’ and it will play on your Fire TV”.
Alexa Plus can also interact with external services, with a demonstrations showing the assistant booking in a repair for an oven, booking in an Uber trip, and being set to buy tickets to an baseball game once tickets dropped below a certain price.
Smarter smart homes
One example of how Alexa Plus is better than the old system is through Automations. Currently, these have to be created in the Alexa app and need some thought and planning to make them work properly.
Now, you can create Routines with just your voice without needing the app, say slowly turning the lights down and reducing the temperature of the heating when it’s bedtime.
Users with a Ring subscription can ask Alexa Plus to provide a summary of events, and the assistant will hunt through the footage and tell you what happened, such a package being delivered, and show you the relevant events.
The AI assistant will also integrated with the Ring Smart Video Search (available in the US only at the moment), where you can find clips by asking questions, such as, “Did someone take out the bins?”
Understanding documents and calendar management
Alexa Plus has been built to understand information, and that includes documents and emails that you share with the system. Once shared, Alexa Plus can extract information and provide summary information.
For example, you can send Alexa Plus a recipe and then ask how much olive oil is needed, or you can share emails from your child’s school and get Alexa Plus to digest them for you.
And, Alexa Plus can create calendar schedules and reminders from the information you send, such as planning out dates for a child’s clubs, and reminding you to take something to the school fundraiser.
Alexa Plus for children
Amazon is launching two new services, Stories with Alexa and Explore with Alexa. Explore with Alexa is designed to help children discover new topics, while Stories is designed to give a more interactive approach to storytelling.
As you might expect from a GenAI product, Alexa Plus was demonstrated creating a story of its own, and it also created a picture based on the story.
Make music
Alexa Plus will also integrate with Suno an AI-powered song creator. Using voice prompts, you can get the system to create a song for you, including vocals, lyrics and instruments.
Price and availability
Alexa Plus will launch in the next few weeks in the US, for households with an Echo Show 8, Echo Show 10, Echo Show 15 or Echo Show 21. It’s priced at $19.99 a month, although Amazon Prime subscribers will get it for free.
