Alexa+ Gets Smarter, But Still Stumbles in Early Use

Amazon’s upgraded voice assistant, Alexa+, is now powered by generative AI and promises smarter, more useful features, but early real-world testing shows mixed results. Following a house fire in 2024, a TechCrunch editor rebuilt her smart home and took the opportunity to try Alexa+ on a new Echo Spot. The assistant is model-agnostic, using AI systems from Amazon Nova and Anthropic to deliver responses, with capabilities that go beyond setting timers or controlling smart home devices. Alexa+ now supports calendar integration, file summaries, smart shopping tools, and even third-party services like OpenTable, Uber, and Ticketmaster. While setup has been simplified with QR code scanning and granular permissions, the Alexa app remains confusing and cluttered, often burying essential settings. In practical use, Alexa+ sometimes shines but often falls short. For instance, when asked to manage a Google calendar, Alexa could answer basic queries but struggled to accurately add events or interpret user prompts without interruption. One key feature, “Remember This,” failed to reliably store and recall information, like a frequent flyer number. Similarly, attempts to summarize emails worked fairly well, but Alexa failed to add all important dates from a school message, instead selecting only a few, potentially missing others. The assistant also had trouble tracking prices on Amazon, responding inconsistently when asked for current item availability or stock details. These early findings suggest that Alexa+ feels more like a beta than a fully polished product. Its voice AI occasionally mishears commands, lags, or gives inaccurate information. Despite being designed for richer, agentic interactions, the system often fumbles with simple tasks that should be seamless. Amazon aims to bring action-taking AI into homes, but Alexa+ still needs refinement before it becomes the truly capable home assistant it’s marketed to be. As competition heats up in AI-driven smart assistants, including from Apple, Google, and OpenAI, Alexa+ may need to evolve rapidly to stay relevant. A deeper test of its agentic features is expected in the next installment of the review series.