Driving my bike Saturday afternoon, I noticed a poster for the upcoming Ballard Makers Market & Bar Hop — the type of occasion I knew my household would possibly take pleasure in. I pulled over and took a photograph.
Usually, that may have been the tip of it: one other forgotten flyer and missed occasion. However this time, I opened the Amazon Alexa app on my telephone, dropped the picture of the poster right into a chat thread, and requested Alexa so as to add the occasion to my calendar with a reminder.
Alexa extracted the textual content from the poster, scheduled the reminder, and later, once I requested, recited the main points so my household may determine if we needed to go.
For me, this illustrates the most effective a part of Alexa+, the upgraded model of Amazon’s voice assistant: the flexibility to take unstructured data — a photograph, an e mail, a snippet of textual content, an informal request — and switch it into one thing helpful.
As an alternative of counting on inflexible voice instructions or fastidiously phrased questions, Alexa+ can detect, analyze, and floor data once you want it, in a approach that begins to really feel much less like programming a gadget and extra like having a private assistant.
It’s not excellent. Alexa takes time to course of uploaded occasion posters, for instance, and in one other state of affairs required me to comply with up earlier than it truly added an occasion to my calendar. Nonetheless, it’s an early signal of Alexa+’s promise.
One other use case exhibits the identical potential in a distinct context. Once I get an e mail from my daughter’s college, I can ahead it from the e-mail account related to my Amazon account to alexa@alexa.com, which saves it in our household’s Alexa data base. Later, in the lounge, I can merely ask Alexa for particulars.
Once we needed to know what college students ought to convey on the primary day of faculty, for instance, Alexa pulled immediately from the FAQ that had been hooked up to the principal’s e mail.
“For the primary day of faculty on September 3, [students] ought to convey a number of pencils and pens, paper for notes, and a pocket book with pocket dividers,” was Alexa’s useful response. “They’ll additionally want lunch or cash for lunch. Academics will let college students know in the event that they want particular supplies like a composition e-book for sure lessons.”
That second was useful, however the course of additionally illustrates one of many shortcomings of Alexa+. The system solely works in the event you take the step of feeding it the data. Alexa integrates with in style on-line calendars, however as a result of Amazon isn’t a significant supplier of productiveness apps, the expertise of constructing your individual Alexa database nonetheless feels principally guide.
Think about if Alexa may robotically floor or flag particulars in class emails with out the consumer having to ahead them or ask. That will really feel extra like a real private assistant.
Additionally, I’ll admit, forwarding a message with mildly private information to alexa@alexa.com makes me uncomfortable, even with assurances of privateness.
Amazon’s Alexa staff is little question working to make issues extra seamless. The convenience of sharing data guarantees to enhance with the upcoming launch of alexa.com, a web-based interface that can make it doable to talk with Alexa on a pc. (This characteristic has been delayed; I’ve a message into Amazon for an replace.)
Alexa+, unveiled in February 2025, is out there in an early entry interval, through a waitlist. It’s free for Prime members, and can finally price $20/month for non-Prime members after the early entry interval.
The most important change that new customers will discover is the flexibility to have extra fluid conversations, powered by generative AI — not needing to repeatedly say Alexa’s title to maintain chatting as up to now.
One problem for Amazon is that Alexa is now not simply competing with different good audio system. For many individuals, it’s now simply as pure to say “Hey Siri” or open the ChatGPT app as it’s to name out “Alexa” throughout the room. Alexa+ was late to generative AI, and within the meantime, many people have discovered different options.
I’ve but to completely embrace some the superior options of Alexa+. The duties that may be dealt with with its agentic capabilities — scheduling a house restore or ordering dinner, for instance — nonetheless really feel simpler and extra intuitive for me to deal with on a pc or with an old style app.
For now, Alexa+ feels uneven — half futuristic assistant, half workaround. However when it really works, it’s genuinely useful. If Amazon can clean out the friction and combine Alexa+ into life extra seamlessly, it should have a greater likelihood of succeeding as a next-generation, AI-enabled private assistant.
