At its press event last month, Amazon announced a bevy of new devices, including a new range of Echo devices focused on supporting Alexa+. While its next-generation AI assistant is still in Early Access, I’ve been testing it for months and found it to be very capable, with more promising features on the way. Here’s how you can get your hands on it, what it can do for you, and if it’s worth investing in one of Amazon’s shiny new devices to try it out.
How to Get Alexa+
Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio (Credit: Emily Forlini/PCMag)
If you buy one of Amazon’s new Echo devices, you get access to Alexa+ right out of the box, though you’ll have to wait for these products to officially launch. The Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio arrive on Oct. 29, while the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11 will be out on Nov. 12. Several previous-gen Echo devices are also on sale now for Prime Big Deal Days.
Once you have a supported device, Alexa+ Early Access is available now in the US. To get started, you can enroll in Alexa+ during the setup process of a compatible device. Alternatively, visit the company’s Alexa+ store page and select Notify me. Or, say “Notify me when Alexa+ is available” to one of your Echo devices or type “set up Alexa+” in the Alexa app.
(Credit: Amazon / PCMag)
When Alexa+ is available, you’ll receive a notification on your mobile device and a welcome email at the address registered to your Amazon account. Alexa+ will then take you through an introductory process to learn about your preferences and create a profile. You’ll also be able to personalize Alexa+, including choosing one of its four masculine or four feminine voices.
You can opt out of Alexa+ early access at any time by visiting your Memberships & Subscriptions page and clicking End Early Access next to the service name.
When it exits beta, Alexa+ will be available for free to Prime members and $19.99 per month for everyone else.
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What Alexa+ Can Do For You
Alexa’s glow-up is more than just marketing. In my testing, I’ve found that it really has become a more capable service. This is all part of what Amazon is calling its “ambient AI” push. The idea is that Amazon wants its services, devices, and AI model to be accessible wherever you are, as long as you’re within range of one of its smart speakers or displays, or your mobile device.
While I was initially skeptical of this “upgrade,” I must admit that I’ve found it genuinely useful to have easy access to AI. Amazon has largely delivered on the promise of a smarter, more conversational assistant. It’s not so much that Alexa+ is adding revolutionary new features that other AI models don’t offer, but rather that it’s combining a multitude of functions in a ubiquitous service that’s incorporated into a variety of devices I already own.
(Credit: Amazon)
Better Querying
The main role Alexa+ plays in my life is informational. I have an Echo Dot on my desk that I’m constantly querying while working, writing, or watching movies and TV. Even my previous-generation Dot seems better at picking up my voice than Google or Apple’s phone-based smart assistants, and it’s a lot easier to ask AI a question with my voice rather than interrupt my workflow by opening a new tab and punching a question into ChatGPT or Gemini. Alexa+ is also more responsive and better at maintaining a conversational flow of questions, commands, and answers than Siri or other assistants.
Contextual Reminders
It’s also great at alarms and reminders. Beyond the standard notifications you can program in for a specific time and date, Alexa+ can provide recurring notifications. For instance, to ensure I didn’t forget to watch the Ryder Cup last weekend, I told Alexa to set a recurring notification to be broadcast from the Echo Dot on my desk every two hours, and to only stop notifying me when I’d indicated that I’d received the message. You can leverage AI to set context-specific reminders (“remind me every time there’s an upcoming Buffalo Bills game”), or import reminders from your existing calendar. You can even have Alexa+ help you build new reminders based on emails, and it can generate a color-coded calendar of its own to help manage your family’s activities.
Playlist Creation
New Spotify integration means that Alexa+ can also provide a soothing (or inspiring) background to your workday. You can ask it to help create a playlist for you by providing the titles of specific songs or artists, or even get some AI assistance in building a playlist around a theme or mood. I asked Alexa+ to build me a playlist with a Fall theme and was generally impressed with the results (though there were some strange inclusions, like “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac).
News Briefings
Alexa+ is also pretty good at parsing and delivering news. Amazon has partnered with more than 200 outlets, including Reuters, the Associated Press, and The Washington Post, and can tailor a news package for you based on your preferences. You can get a customized Daily Briefing with everything from political headlines to sports results to news about your favorite entertainment properties.
(Credit: Amazon)
Enhanced Memory
It’s also much better at remembering and incorporating previous interactions you’ve had with it into current conversations. For instance, Alexa remembered my negative feedback about a restaurant I’d gotten dinner from and mentioned it in a conversation about local Chinese places. It can also recall family recipes, as well as the fact that you or a family member has a gluten allergy or is a vegetarian.
Improved Recommendations
There’s also improved Fire TV integration now. You can ask Alexa for general movie recommendations, and it will learn your taste over time. You can also ask more abstract questions for a specific scenario (“Alexa, recommend some movies to watch with my dad”). There’s even improved awareness of live content, like sports scores.
Wellness Integration
Amazon is also trying to find a foothold in the wellness space, with Alexa+ at the vanguard. It can nudge you to work out when it recognizes there’s some free time in your schedule, or gently prod you to start winding down when it gets late. The company plans to expand its wellness offering in the near future through partnerships with Wyze and Withings, which offer smart home devices and medical-grade wellness devices, such as air purifiers and smart scales.
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Everything Still to Come
There’s much more on the way, including some fairly basic deployments, such as Alexa+ on browsers. Beyond that, many of the upcoming features are tied to Amazon’s new devices.
Omnisense
For instance, the new Echo devices will include the ominously named Omnisense sensors. These combine technologies like Wi-Fi radar and ultrasound to detect when a specific user enters a room, and can provide contextual updates, reminders, or content suggestions. They’ll also include improved noise filtering, making it easier for the device to detect the wake word even in noisy environments.
Home Hub
The smart displays will include access to the Alexa+ Home hub, part of Amazon’s push into broader smart home integration. From Home, you can view Ring camera feeds (or receive an AI summary of activity the cameras have recorded) and control any smart devices connected to your network, which can now include thousands of compatible devices from partners such as Zigbee, Matter, and Thread.
(Credit: Amazon)
Alexa+ Store
There’s also the forthcoming Alexa+ Store, which expands on the traditional Amazon digital storefront by including access to apps like DoorDash, TaskRabbit, Uber, Fandango, and much more. It will allow you to shop directly on any of those services, as well as perform tasks like having the AI model book a restaurant reservation or purchase your movie tickets.
Whether you need one of Amazon’s new devices for Alexa+ will depend entirely on your use case, but personally, I don’t see a pressing need to upgrade quite yet. The Omnisense functionality doesn’t thrill me, and my current-gen Echo Dot is perfectly serviceable for my smart speaker and “ambient AI” needs.
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That said, if you intend to use Alexa+ as the core for a smart home network (especially one that includes Ring or Blink cameras, or a dedicated Fire TV), one of the new displays is a compelling hub, and fairly reasonably priced compared with competing devices.
About Our Expert
Experience
Alan is an experienced culture and tech writer/editor with a background in newspaper reporting. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, The Escapist, ESPN, PC Gamer, and a multitude of other outlets. He has over twenty years of experience as a journalist, author, and editor.
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