Amazon launches Alexa+ as Siri advancements drag on

The AI assistant wars are heating up as Amazon announces Alexa+, an upgraded assistant powered by generative AI, while an upgraded Siri remains unfinished.

Amazon has unveiled Alexa+, an AI assistant designed to offer more natural interactions and personalized assistance. The development comes as Apple continues to enhance its own assistant, Siri, through its Apple Intelligence initiative.

Alexa+ aims for natural conversations

Alexa+ is Amazon's latest iteration of its voice-controlled assistant, incorporating generative AI to facilitate human-like conversations. Beyond basic commands, Alexa+ can manage tasks such as booking reservations, creating personalized routines, and controlling smart home devices.

Amazon emphasizes Alexa+'s new agentic skills, promising it can handle online tasks independently. In an example, the company claims Alexa+ can find a repair service, book an appointment, and notify you when it's done if your oven breaks.

However, whether it can handle such complex tasks without human oversight is still unclear.

Alexa+ also integrates with services like Uber, Grubhub, and OpenTable, aiming to provide a seamless user experience. While Alexa+ is priced at $19.99 per month, the same as competitors such as ChatGPT Plus, it's available at no additional cost to Amazon Prime members.

Amazon asserts that Alexa+ is designed with robust privacy and security features, including centralized control through the Alexa Privacy Dashboard and leveraging AWS's secure infrastructure. However, past incidents have raised concerns about the company's data handling practices.

The Alexa ecosystem. Image credit: Amazon

During the early access period, Amazon is giving priority to owners of Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 devices. If customers don't have one of these models but still want to be among the first to try Alexa+, they can buy one now.

The company also has an early access waitlist.

Apple's Siri evolves with Apple Intelligence

While Alexa+ will roll out in the next few weeks, Siri has been slower to evolve. The rollout of Apple Intelligence with iOS 18 introduced promising features like on-device processing for better privacy and quicker responses, along with new capabilities to analyze on-screen content and handle more complex queries.

More advanced capabilities, such as personalized and contextual responses, are not expected until later in 2025. However, unlike Alexa+, Siri is a free service on Apple devices and doesn't cost extra.