We attended Amazon’s February announcement of a massive Alexa AI upgrade with great interest. The new service, called Alexa Plus, promised us conversational AI to set reservations, learn what we like, analyze home video for us and control our smart entertainment on the fly — even if it came with a wee bit of privacy loss.
The enhanced Alexa was supposed to be ready to try in March. Now it’s the middle of May and we’re still waiting. I wish I could say I was surprised. Here’s what’s happening and why Echo users should practice their patience.
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Alexa Plus stalls out: We’ve seen this before
So, where’s the AI? For now, it’s still in early access, and that early access period appears to be limited. Even the few who have tried out Alexa Plus have been quiet about it. Those who’ve spoken up have said the AI is lacking critical features that were mentioned at the announcement, including ordering food on Grubhub with a conversation, entering into a story mode with kids, visually identifying family members during conversations, brainstorming ideas in a casual conversation mode, and using Alexa Plus on the Web. In other words, it’s just not ready yet.
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I’ve seen this before, very recently, with Apple’s announcement that it will be delaying Siri’s big AI upgrade, not only for a year after WWDC 2024, but then again in 2025 and possibly for as long as until 2027 according to our latest info. It’s possible Amazon watched the fallout from these delay announcements plus leaked employee complaints, and decided to be much quieter about the Alexa Plus rollout.
Either way, it could be months before the average consumer sees an option to upgrade to Alexa Plus, and with staggered rollouts, some Amazon customers could be waiting quite some time for the chatty new Alexa. No one at CNET has gotten an early access look at Alexa Plus yet, but the testing period is still ongoing, so we’re hopeful to get our hands on it very soon.
Waiting for the Show
We’re ready with Amazon Echos, Echo Shows, home cameras, smart gadgets and more to test out just what’s changed with Alexa Plus and what features have actually arrived (and what we still can’t do). But for now, it looks like we’re waiting for our own wake word — and I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexa Plus is on a similar trajectory to Siri’s AI delays, sans the troubling announcements and exposes we saw with Apple.
If you’re desperate to see what Amazon is doing with the latest Alexa AI technology, there is a way to get to the front of the line. Amazon has mentioned that during the early access period, it will focus on releasing Alexa Plus for Echo Shows. If you have an Echo Show 8, Show 10, Show 15 or Show 21, you’re more likely to see an offer for Alexa Plus if you sign up for the program.
Otherwise, we’ll keep you updated. Check out our AI Atlas to get the latest on Siri, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok and, yes, Alexa Plus as we learn more and test out new capabilities.
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(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
