I’m a smart home expert. Writing about smart home technology, smart devices, and voice assistants is my job. Yet, I don’t remember the last time I actually spoke with Alexa.
Just to be clear, I don’t mean to pick on Alexa per se. I rarely speak to Google Assistant or Apple’s Siri, either. The reason? It’s way easier to haul out my phone and use an app than it is to get a supposedly “smart” voice assistant to do what I want.
As it stands, there’s a Google Nest Hub Max sitting in our kitchen that acts as a glorified photo frame, and it occasionally interrupts with a random answer to a question nobody asked. A few HomePod minis are scattered around our home, but they’re really just for playing music (which I mainly control on my iPhone). And a lone Alexa speaker in our daughter’s room is merely an alarm clock.
Now Amazon is promising a grand rebirth for Alexa. Slated to roll out as a public preview later this month, Alexa+ will harness the power of generative AI to hold flowing conversations, understand our intentions, take actions on our behalf, and—hopefully—be so helpful that we’ll keep our phones in our pockets.
Alexa+ will be free during its preview period, and it will remain free for Amazon Prime members; non-Prime folks will need to cough up $19.99 a month for Alexa+ access, equivalent to the entry-level subscription tiers for ChatGPT, Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude (the latter of which is among Alexa+’s under-the-hood LLM models).
But cost was never the issue with Alexa (the “classic” Alexa will remain free for everyone, by the way). Instead, it was that Alexa became more annoying than useful.
Here’s what the new AI Alexa needs to do to get us back on speaking terms.
Make it easy to control my smart home devices
Getting the old Alexa to reliably control anything in my smart home is a royal pain. Unless I know the exact name of the device, the name of the room it’s in, and the precise command for making it do what I want it to do, Alexa will frequently come back with “Sorry, I don’t understand” or the equivalent. (Again, Google Assistant and Siri are guilty of this, too.)
As a result, I don’t ask Alexa or any of my other smart speakers to adjust my lights, turn fans on, or switch the TV to the correct input. Instead, I use my phone.
What I want from the new Alexa is simple: to get what I mean when I say, “turn the lights up in here” or “turn on the TV,” and not just because I’ve hard-coded those phrases in an Alexa routine. I want Alexa+ to intuit my intentions—and if it can’t, to ask clear follow-up questions that don’t require me to fall back into “Alexa-speak.”
Amazon is promising this exact type of smart home performance with Alexa+, and if it delivers, I might start using Alexa to control my smart gadgets again.
Make playing tunes a breeze
We use our HomePod mini speakers for music on a daily basis, teeing up tracks by Steely Dan, Miles Davis, and (more often than not) Taylor Swift. But my family struggles to get Siri to play the right tunes (“No, play the album called Lover, not the song”), so I generally queue playlists using my phone. It’s just easier than arguing with a voice assistant.
The same goes for Alexa, which is partly why there’s only one Echo speaker left in our house (the others are in a cardboard box somewhere.) But what if Alexa+ could make it easier to ask for music rather than searching for it on an app? What if we could just say, “Alexa, play that song from The Hills” and it would know we meant “Unwritten” by Natasha Bendingfield? (That’s an actual question that came up the other night—and naturally, Siri played “The Hills” by the Weeknd instead.)
If Alexa+ could really make it easier to play the music we want, and where we want (don’t get me started about trying to get Alexa or Siri to move tunes from one room to another), then our exiled Echo speakers might come out of hiding to replace our HomePods.
Be truly helpful in the kitchen
Yes, Alexa can display recipes on an Echo Show display (Google Assistant can do something similar on a Nest Hub screen), but more often than not, I just print out the recipe for whatever I’m cooking and bring it to the kitchen. It’s just easier. Put another way, Alexa has never played a meaningful role as a cook’s companion, or at least not for me.
Now, I have had success using ChatGPT to help in the kitchen (“What can I substitute for sesame oil?”). but that requires pulling out a phone when I have sticky or raw-meat hands. I would really love the ability to say “Hey Alexa, I need a quick recipe for a vinaigrette dressing, can you whip one up for me? Give me the steps one at a time, and I don’t have red wine vinegar, but I do have mustard, olive oil, and balsamic,” and Alexa would just talk me through it.
Again, Amazon demonstrated this very capability during its Alexa+ presentation last month, even going further to show how Alexa could order groceries with a partnered retailer like Whole Foods. But to just have a conversation with Alexa about general cooking questions (“what’s the safe internal temperature for pork?”) without it saying “I don’t know the answer, but I can show you search results from the web” would be a major win. Heck, I might even leave my printer alone the next time I’m about to cook.
Answer my random questions
We’re a family with lots of questions about, well, everything (it’s the byproduct of having a 13-year-old daughter), but I always groan when someone asks, for example, “Alexa, what’s something cool to do in Baltimore?” Why? Because Alexa won’t know, or it will come up with a random answer, and then someone will inevitably tell Alexa to “shut up,” and it won’t, and then things get ugly.
A more conversational Alexa+ could help keep such random questions from devolving into shouting matches, with the ability to go back and forth, ask follow-ups for clarity, and deliver organized responses that are actually relevant and interesting. The advanced voice modes for the ChatGPT and Google Gemini apps can already do this, and summoning Alexa+ on an Echo speaker for such general questions would be even easier.
Of course, if Alexa+ could go ahead and do something based on our conversation—say, book one of those interesting activities it found in Baltimore—we’d really have something. And that leads me to my next point…
Take action on my behalf
One of the big points Amazon made during its big Alexa+ reveal is that unlike ChatGPT and Gemini, the new Alexa won’t just be stuck in a chatbox. Instead, it will actually be able to do things for you.
An example demonstrated during Amazon’s event was how Alexa+ could help find a nearby carpet cleaner who uses organic materials, book an appointment, and put it in your calendar. Done and done.
Here’s another example from real life: I’m using ChatGPT to help me find affordable real estate in New York City. (Cue the laughter.) But while ChatGPT has been reasonably effective at zeroing in on listings that fit our criteria, it’s useless when it comes to proactively scouting for and notifying me about new properties on the market, and it can’t do squat about booking viewings.
But if I could have a daily chat with Alexa+ about my real estate ambitions, or if it could chime in when it learns of an enticing open house and put it on my calendar, or even fill in a real estate agent’s web form, that would be cool.
Amazon has been touting Alexa+’s skills as an AI agent, and it can supposedly fill in web forms on its own, so the kind of functionality I’m talking about here is theoretically possible. I’m eager to see it in practice.
Stop interrupting me
How many times has Alexa, or Google Assistant, or Siri just started talking out of nowhere? Sometimes I’ll just be sitting in the kitchen and I’ll hear Alexa nattering away in my daughter’s empty bedroom, or Siri will jump in with an “mmm hmm?” because it thought it heard someone say “Siri.”
Part of the reason we tucked away most of our Alexa speakers (and I’m tempted to mute the microphones on our remaining Google Assistant and Siri devices) is that they’re constantly talking out of turn, butting in on conversations, and replying to phantom queries.
What I’m hoping is that the new AI Alexa is smart enough not to jump in every time it thinks it hears the “Alexa” wake word—or if it does accidentally speak up, that it gracefully cedes the floor when we say, “Not talking to you, Alexa.”