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ZDNET's key takeaways
- Alexa+ is now widely available in the US.
- It adds generative AI to Amazon's voice assistant.
- Prime members get Alexa+ at no extra cost.
Amazon has been focused on integrating generative AI into Alexa for the past few years, though the road has been riddled with delays since the first announcement in September 2023. Alexa 2.0 was last poised for a 2025 release, but Amazon did not announce its new generative AI-powered virtual assistant was ready until this February.
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It initially rolled out the voice assistant's generative AI features through an Early Access program that lasted about 10 months, but now, Amazon has made Alexa+ available to anyone who wants to use it. Since the Alexa+ pre-release, Amazon has launched a new lineup of Echo devices, including the Echo Show 11, the Echo Dot Max, and the new Echo Studio. The company also expanded Alexa+ access to more devices, so even if you buy a 2023 Echo Show 8, it comes with Alexa+.
"Up until a couple of years ago, it was pretty difficult to invent with AI, and that changed with the arrival of foundational models and generative AI," aid Amazon CEO Andy Jassy at the Alexa+ 2025 launch event. "This made the technology much more accessible, so people can see the power and magic of what generative AI can do."
Alexa+ is a generative-AI-powered virtual assistant. It responds with a more natural cadence, handles multiple prompts within a single query, and generates content rather than providing canned answers. Alexa+ also offers greater customization, allowing it to remember user preferences (think ChatGPT's Memory) for more productive user interactions.
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Aside from all of this, Alexa+ has contextual awareness, so it can hold long conversations and remember what you asked before your last question, rather than repeating prewritten responses from Alexa Answers contributors. As Amazon demonstrated, it can also read and process documents to answer questions, such as school calendars or an HOA's CC&R document.
Giving Alexa the power of generative AI was already expected to be Amazon's star announcement in 2025, and it has been. The company is now bringing the generative AI-powered Alexa+ to reality, especially after making it available to all users in 2026.
The new Alexa+ is now available for all Alexa users in the US. The improved virtual assistant began rolling out to some users in the spring of 2025 in an early access phase, which has since been phased out in favor of general availability.
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While Alexa dominates the US market for virtual assistants (nearly two-thirds of smart speaker owners use Echo devices), it had fallen behind other assistants, including Gemini and Copilot. The release of OpenAI's ChatGPT triggered a tidal wave of generative AI tech, pushing other virtual assistants to the sidelines.
The new breed of generative AI-powered virtual assistants -- ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, powered by OpenAI's technologies; Gemini, powered by Google's LLMs; and Claude, powered by Anthropic -- has surged ahead in the past few years. The new Alexa+, powered by Amazon Bedrock models such as Nova and Anthropic, is much more capable than its previous version.
Amazon's Alexa+ is available as a subscription service for $20 per month, but it is also included with a Prime subscription. A subscription-based system has been rumored for about a year, so this did not come as a surprise. However, those rumors suggested a cost of between $5 and $10 monthly. At $20, Alexa+ is the same price as a ChatGPT Plus subscription.
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The Classic Alexa will still be available for users who prefer not to pay the monthly fee, though it is unclear how long Amazon plans to keep the current version.
Amazon launched a revamped Echo Show platform, Alexa+, along with a redesigned Amazon Alexa app.
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The redesigned Echo Show user interface features a sleeker layout for your favorite widgets and a cohesive look throughout the screen. Alexa+ is conversation-focused in the app; instead of opening straight into a list of actions and devices, the Alexa app opens into a chat with the new assistant.
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