(Credit: Zooey Liao/PCMag/Amazon News)
AI makes a lot of sense for powering virtual assistants that control smart home devices. And that's the main reason Amazon developed Alexa+, a smarter version of the original Alexa, for various Echo speakers and smart displays. The company recently debuted a web version of Alexa+ that works like an AI chatbot, doing everything from generating images to helping you shop. I got a chance to try it out, and I can't say I'm impressed.
Alexa+ Looks Like Every Other Chatbot—With One Key Advantage
In a browser, Alexa+ mimics the interface of a standard chatbot, opting for a central text field and a left-hand menu. It has a lot of similar functionality, too. You can chat with Alexa+, for example, as well as get answers about your calendar, generate images, make shopping lists, search the web, upload files for it to access, and more.
As you might expect, Alexa+ has a robust integration with Amazon, which other chatbots often struggle to access consistently. Practically, it can populate links to Amazon items without issue and take you directly to product listings. You can even add items directly to your Amazon cart from within the Alexa+ interface.
Beyond its chatbot features, the web version of Alexa+ retains the ability to control smart home devices (such as my smart lights), much like an Echo.
Where Alexa+ Falls Apart
Despite offering several of the same features as other chatbots, Alexa+ is uncompetitive across the board. For example, although Alexa+ can search the web, it generally does so slowly and doesn’t incorporate many sources in its responses. It can create images, but its tech is a generation or two behind top alternatives, such as ChatGPT's Images 2.0 and Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro.
I asked Alexa (first slide) and Nano Banana Pro (second slide) to generate an image with the following prompt: “Generate me an image of a cozy suburban home with an open floor plan. I want to see a nice living space with a dining room, kitchen, and living room. Nothing too fancy.” Alexa’s image is rife with errors and distortion, as well as much lower resolution than Nano Banana Pro’s creation.
You also can’t meaningfully adjust Alexa+'s settings, chat with it over voice, change models, code your own apps, do deep research, edit images, enjoy a suite of integrations with third-party services, generate videos, and many other things. In short, most of the features I’ve come to expect from a modern AI chatbot just aren’t available in Alexa+. In its current state, it feels like more of a proof of concept for Alexa as an AI chatbot than a full-fledged product.
And although you get access to Alexa+ for free with a Prime membership, it costs $20 per month as a standalone service. That's far too expensive for Alexa+ on the web, especially since more capable chatbots cost about the same or less.
The Bigger Question: Who Is This For?
Alexa+'s browser experience seems likely to improve over time, and Alexa itself confirms this. For example, when I asked if it could generate videos, Alexa told me it couldn’t yet, but hoped to learn soon. This isn’t an official confirmation, but it’s hard to believe that Amazon doesn’t want a bigger presence in the AI chatbot space. Furthermore, why would Amazon bother bringing Alexa+ to the web at all if the company didn’t have grander ambitions?
Still, I can’t help but wonder why anybody would want an Alexa+-powered chatbot. Sure, it's useful to be able to turn off my lights with a voice command, but I would never do that via a browser when I can simply ask my Echo to do the same from anywhere in my apartment or use a dedicated app that gives me more granular control. And unless Amazon wants to spend many billions of dollars to develop Alexa+, it isn't catching up to ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini any time soon.
Even its non-Amazon shopping features, which I half-expected to be strengths of Alexa+, aren't much different from those available with other AI chatbots. It provides regurgitated recommendations from buying guides at best and bad advice at worst. Beyond that, Amazon's Rufus AI shopping assistant already works quite well for getting answers directly on Amazon listings.
I expect that people primarily use Alexa+, much like Siri, as a virtual personal assistant to answer questions, quickly order things, set timers, and the like, all of which are easy to do hands-free on an Echo. If there's some great demand for a web-based, Alexa+-powered chatbot for general use, I'm not aware of it. Frankly, I think Amazon should keep Alexa squarely in its established lane, leveraging AI only to make it better at the things people actually use it to do.
A Web Experience You Can Safely Ignore
Although there's no harm in checking out the browser-based Alexa+ if you’re curious, I promise it's not yet worth the trouble. Any other chatbot, from ChatGPT to Gemini, can serve you infinitely better. Nonetheless, I'll put it to the test again in the future and will let you know if it's worth another shot.