Invitations to Amazon's upgraded digital assistant Alexa+ are powered by generation AI and are steadily rolling out. The service was first announced in February and now has more than 1 million users, Amazon confirmed with TechCrunch on Monday. However, Alexa+ has not been released yet.
Instead, Amazon is working through WaitList and sends invitations to the first customers they signed up to test the service when it becomes available. Over the past few weeks, many people have shared on social media that they have received invitations to try out Alexa+, which offers more natural and personalized interactions, smart home integrations and extensions thanks to AI.
Alexa+ is available free of charge during early access and later free for Prime customers. Non-Prime users can use the service for $19.99 per month after it is published.
Earlier this year, Amazon noted that invitations to try out new systems will unfold in the waves in the coming months. As of May 2025, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Alexa+ had reached over 100,000 users so far, representing only a small portion of the 600 million Alexa devices it had sold. That number increased significantly in the next few weeks.
Alexa+ represents a serious attempt by Amazon to create a generic AI experience that consumers can ultimately monetize.
Amazon created a market for voice-based assistants connected to smart homes through its Echo devices with Alexa, but it was unable to turn that traction into a profitable business. Meanwhile, Alexa has lost its glow recently as a generation AI service like ChatGpt took off. Compared to modern AI, Alexa began to feel clunky, restrained and ineffective.
Alexa+ aims to provide new features for digital assistants. The service allows users to chat with digital assistants in more natural language. For example, you could tell Alexa to adjust the smart thermostat, “It's too cold here.” You can also create routines, search for ring camera footage, interrupt or pivot conversations with your assistant.
This experience is more personalized as you save your tastes, from your favorite songs to recipes and remember what you like.
With its generative AI components, Alexa can summarise long emails to share with the service, create unique bedtime stories, generate quizzes from study guides, create trip itineraries, provide an overview of smart home activities, answer other questions, and more, as well as how AI chatbots respond.
Additionally, assistants can help you take certain actions, such as purchasing concert tickets, booking dinner reservations, and notifying you when something you are watching is on sale, etc. The first partners for this feature include Opentable, Tickentmaster, Uber Eats, Tripadvisor, Grubhub, Yelp, Priceline, Viator, Thumbtack, Atom, Fodor's, and more.
Even with early access, Alexa+ will initially be available on US Echo Show 8, 10, 15, or 21 devices, but will expand to more Echo customers, Fire TV users, and fire tablet users.
Customers invited to try out the products reported mixed results, some noting that they were more sophisticated than Siri, while others said they were still rough around the edge. (I agree with the latter for the initial review.)