We are moving into a new era of virtual assistants. Within a span of two days, two of the biggest players in the segment — Google and Amazon — have shifted their smart home devices to next-gen AI-powered assistants, which do a lot more than your average chatbot. Amazon’s ecosystem is now powered by Alexa+ going forward, while Google Assistant is paving the way for Gemini.
Amazon has a critical advantage here. It has hundreds of millions of devices out there that are ready to receive the Alexa+ upgrade, either natively or indirectly. But as I recently highlighted, the real star of the show is not the hardware, but the conveniences that they bring to the table. And most of them are tied to the Alexa+ assistant.
Here are the four standout capabilities of Alexa+ that I am most excited about, and you should pay attention to them, as well.
It doesn’t feel like talking to a robot
Alright, let’s start with the fundamentals. Alexa+ is a lot more chatty, and you don’t have to say the wake word (like “hey Alexa” or “hey echo”) for each query. Once you summon it, the assistant will stay with you. That feels a lot more natural and removes a persistent awareness that you’re talking to a robot with hard-coded linguistic capabilities.
Alexa+ is built atop the same foundations aka Large Language Models (LLMs) as your average chatbot such as Google Gemini or ChatGPT. In a nutshell, it will engage in a free-flowing conversation with you, and it will only get more natural over time as it learns about your preferences, habits, and daily life patterns.
But you don’t always chat with an AI assistant as a friend. It’s there to get work done for you. And that’s where the conversational capabilities come in handy. Instead of pulling up your routines or saying some repetitive command, you can just ask Alexa+ and it will follow.
For example, you can just say something like “turn on the lights in the garage when I enter the driveway and reduce the thermostat temperature,” and it will oblige. No more rules or obscure automation shortcuts. You can just say things, and wherever it needs more clarity, Alexa+ will ask for it, instead of returning an error message.
It’s smarter in the true sense
Alexa+ is not just an assistant. It’s a living encyclopedia of knowledge, which has been trained using a vast cache of training material across different domains, from maths to history. You can ask it about virtually any topic, and it will most likely offer the answers in a deeply conversational tone. Or, you can ask it to feed you information like a physics teacher at the highest level, or have it broken down to you in a way fitting for a fifth-grader.
This instantaneous vibe shift is important and convenient, especially if you have people of different age groups living under the same roof, but with varied interests. Another crucial benefit is that it now has real-time awareness of the events happening in the world. And more importantly, it won’t feed you wrong information, a problem commonly known as “hallucination” in the context of AI chatbots.
That’s because Amazon has partnered with some of the most reliable sources of information out there, such as Associated Press, Reuters, The Washington Post, TIME, Forbes, Business Insider, Politico, USA TODAY, Conde Nast, Hearst, Vox, and 200 additional outlets. But Alexa+ is not just more reliable, it will also learn from your interests.
“With Alexa+ Daily Briefings, you can get a breakdown of the latest trending news stories based on your interests—from updates on your favorite sports team to the latest in pop culture,” says Amazon.
It’s everywhere
One of the most underrated conveniences of Alexa+ is that it’s available everywhere. From your smart display, speaker, and TV to the smartphone in your pocket and the web browser on your laptop. Additionally, it integrates across your work-related services, so whether it’s your email or calendar, it seamlessly co-exists, learns, and offers help whenever you need it.
The best part is that irrespective of the device you are using to access Alexa+, the memory and context of that context (or action) is shared across the board. “You can start a conversation with Alexa+ on your Echo device, continue on the go with your phone or in the car, and pick it up on your computer,” says Amazon. In a nutshell, it’s seamlessly available everywhere.
Memory and context are two of the biggest perks of this approach. For example, you can ask it to remember not only your preferences, but also nuggets of information about other people for future reference. You can also add documents, meeting details, calendar events, and more with Alexa+, and take appropriate action.
You can get a quick rundown of your meetings, check the progress of an email chain, turn boring stuff into interactive learning material for kids, and do a lot more. It can skip to a particular scene in a film on Prime Video, keep an eye on a music artist’ album release, offer a rundown of activities tracked by smart home cameras, and do more. All of it can happen without worrying about the surface you have Alexa+ access to.
It’s agentic beyond hype
The most futuristic use case of Alexa+ is performing multi-step chores on your behalf, with full awareness of your preferences. For example, it can learn from your dietary preferences and based on what it sees through the camera, it can re-order items in your pantry. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
It can also surf the Internet and take action on your behalf, thanks to integration with hundreds of services across different categories, ranging from OpenTable and Grubhub to Ticketmaster. For example, you can tell it to schedule a service appointment for fixing a broken tap.
Alexa+, armed with the knowledge (name, address, email, credit card) will open a service like Thumbtack, pick the appropriate service person in the desired appointment slot, make a booking, and send over the details to your phone, calendar, and email inbox.
Likewise, it can handle restaurant bookings via services like OpenTable, track and book event tickets via TicketMaster, set up a spa date on Vagaro, and do a lot more. All of it is done autonomously, and thanks to Amazon’s expansive partnerships, the number of services you can get work done across — with a simple voice command — is only going to go up in the coming months.
The agentic side of Alexa+ covers smart home chores, too. You can create multi-step routines and commands by simply describing them, and Alexa+ will navigate the entire device network and do the job for you. The only caveat is that you must be an Amazon loyalist (read: Prime subscriber), or ready to cough up $20 per months to exploit all the next-gen AI assistant chops of Alexa+ in your life.
