If you’ve walked past your Echo lately and noticed it acting a little... different, you aren't imagining things. It’s finally happening. After years of feeling like a glorified kitchen timer that occasionally understands your accent, Amazon has announced a massive update for its Alexa assistant, and it’s a total ground-up rebuild.
They’re calling it Alexa+.
The "Classic" Alexa we’ve lived with since 2014 was basically a giant decision tree. It looked for specific "if-this-then-that" commands. If you didn't say the magic words exactly right, you got the dreaded "I'm sorry, I don't know that one." Alexa+ is different. It’s powered by a combination of Amazon’s own "Nova" large language models and Anthropic’s Claude AI.
Honestly, it’s about time. While ChatGPT and Gemini were sprinting ahead, Alexa felt stuck in the past. This update isn't just a fresh coat of paint; it’s a brain transplant.
The End of the Wake Word Marathon
One of the most annoying parts of using a smart speaker is having to say the name every single time. "Alexa, what's the weather?" "Alexa, what about tomorrow?" "Alexa, should I wear a coat?"
With the new update, that’s gone.
Amazon is introducing something called Persistent Context. You can actually have a back-and-forth conversation. You can interrupt her. You can use "half-formed thoughts," as Amazon SVP Panos Panay puts it. If you ask for a recipe, and then halfway through realize you’re out of eggs, you can just say, "Wait, I don't have eggs, find me a version without them," and it knows exactly what you’re talking about.
It feels way more like talking to a person and less like barking orders at a plastic cylinder.
Pricing and the "Prime Perk" Strategy
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the cost.
For the first time, Amazon is putting a price tag on its assistant. If you aren't an Amazon Prime member, Alexa+ is going to cost $19.99 a month. Yeah, you read that right.
That puts it right in the same bracket as ChatGPT Plus or Gemini Advanced. However—and this is a big "however"—if you already pay for Amazon Prime, the update is included at no extra cost. It’s a massive play to make that Prime subscription feel indispensable. Amazon is basically betting that you’d rather keep your Prime membership than pay twenty bucks a month just for a smarter AI.
For the folks who don't want to pay and don't have Prime, "Classic Alexa" is sticking around for now. But let's be real: all the cool new features are going to the plus-tier.
What is "Agentic" AI anyway?
Amazon is leaning hard into the word "agentic." It sounds like corporate jargon, but the actual application is kinda cool. It means Alexa can now do things on your behalf instead of just telling you how to do them.
- Task Completion: You can tell Alexa+ your oven is broken. Instead of giving you a list of repair shops, it can navigate the web, find a pro on Thumbtack, check your calendar, and tentatively schedule the appointment.
- Document Processing: You can actually upload a PDF of your kid’s school calendar or your HOA’s 50-page rulebook to your Alexa account. Later, you can just ask, "When is the bake sale?" or "Can I put solar panels on my roof?" and it will give you the answer based on those specific files.
- Smart Home Mastery: Setting up "Routines" used to be a chore in the app. Now you can just say, "Every morning at 7, turn on the lights, start the coffee, and tell me the news," and it builds the automation for you instantly.
The New Look: From Speakers to Screens
If you own an Echo Show (the ones with the screens), the update looks pretty radical. They’ve moved away from the old tiled interface to a more "chat-forward" design. It looks a bit more like a messaging app.
There's also a new Adaptive Display feature for the bigger screens like the Echo Show 15 and 21. When you’re across the room, it shows you big, glanceable info like the time or a "For You" summary. As you walk closer, the sensors (using that fancy new AZ3 chip) recognize you and transition the screen into your personal dashboard—your specific calendar, your music, and your recent packages.
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Privacy and the Cloud Trade-off
There is a catch. There's always a catch.
To make Alexa+ this smart, Amazon has had to change how it handles your voice. In the past, some Echo devices could process your "Turn on the lights" command locally, right on the device. That’s mostly over.
As of March 2025, Amazon has been moving toward cloud-only processing for these AI features. They need the massive power of AWS servers to handle the LLM reasoning. This means your voice data is being sent to the cloud more often than before. For the privacy-conscious, this might be a dealbreaker.
Amazon says they’ve built this on "secure infrastructure," but the reality is that to have a "personalized" AI that remembers your favorite pizza toppings and your daughter's gluten allergy, you have to give it that data.
Getting Started with the New Update
If you’re a Prime member, you might already have access. Amazon started a mass rollout in early 2026.
- Check your device: The update is hitting Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 first.
- Try the web: You don't even need an Echo anymore. You can go to Alexa.com and sign in to chat with the new AI just like you would with ChatGPT.
- Use the app: The mobile app has been redesigned to be "agent-forward," meaning there’s a big "Talk to Alexa" button right at the bottom that lets you type or speak complex requests.
- The "Exit" Command: If you hate it, you can currently say, "Alexa, exit Alexa+" to go back to the classic version, though nobody knows how long Amazon will keep that backdoor open.
This update feels like the first time in a decade that Alexa is actually trying to be a "personal assistant" rather than just a smart speaker. Whether people are willing to trade more of their privacy for a device that can book their plumber remains to be seen, but the technology is finally here.
Actionable Next Steps:
Log into your Alexa Privacy Dashboard to review what data is being shared under the new AI settings. If you’re a Prime member, try asking Alexa a "multi-step" question—like planning a three-day itinerary for a trip to Austin—to see if the Alexa+ features have been activated on your account yet.