All Announcements from the Alexa + AI Event Hosted by Amazon

Amazon recently held its first big product event of 2025, and as many anticipated, the spotlight was completely on Alexa. Last year, the company first mentioned a new, advanced version of its voice assistant but had to postpone its official launch due to technical issues. During this event, Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of hardware, and his team presented the latest version known as Alexa+.

The main highlight was the introduction of Alexa+, an upgraded version of Amazon’s voice assistant that will begin rolling out next month, starting with Echo Show devices. The subscription for Alexa+ costs $20 each month, but those who are members of Amazon Prime can use it for free. Currently, Prime membership costs $15 a month, which leads to speculation about a potential price increase.

Alexa+ aims to offer a more conversational experience and is designed to be smarter and more helpful across various compatible devices. For example, it can remember individual preferences, like your favorite foods, and use this information when suggesting recipes. Additionally, Alexa+ can recognize your tone and mood; during a live demonstration, it seemed to help Panay stay calm while speaking on stage.

Panay pointed out that smart home management is greatly enhanced with Alexa+. The assistant can now help you manage tasks like transferring music from one Echo device to another speaker or TV, or even skipping to a specific scene in a Prime Video movie.

Furthermore, Amazon claims that Alexa+ can answer questions about a range of topics, such as footage from Ring cameras, photos from Echo Show devices, emails, files like PDFs, handwritten notes, and your calendar. It can also provide information about sports games and use a service called Suno to create custom songs on the spot.

Amazon has teamed up with numerous news organizations to ensure that Alexa+ can provide up-to-date information on many subjects. Other partnerships include companies like Uber for ride-hailing, OpenTable for restaurant bookings, and services like Spotify and Samsung. There’s also a feature for Amazon Fresh,

allowing you to check your grocery cart directly on your screen.

For younger users, Alexa+ offers special features. The voice assistant can share customized stories based on what children express interest in. It also aims to provide accurate answers to kids’ questions, hopefully avoiding the misinformation that had previously caused delays in the updates.

Panay acknowledged that the current version of Alexa can be frustrating at times, but he believes that generative AI can alleviate many of these issues. He emphasized that a chatbot alone wouldn’t meet Amazon’s goals for Alexa, which is to create a user-friendly tool that truly helps users take action. With Alexa+, he confidently claimed that users need not feel intimidated by the technology anymore.

Amazon also announced that Alexa+ would be accessible outside of Echo devices. You will soon be able to use it via alexa.com, which currently looks very basic but is expected to be updated soon. A demonstration showed that users would be able to type in their questions. Additionally, Amazon is refreshing its Alexa apps for both iOS and Android to enable access to the new features.

However, there was little to report regarding new hardware. Many expected Amazon to unveil new devices such as Echo Buds, Echo speakers, or smart displays alongside Alexa+. Instead, the focus remained solely on the upgraded voice assistant, which is primarily usable on devices with screens, such as the Echo Show, smartphones, or computers. That said, Amazon assured that Alexa+ would be compatible with almost all previously released Alexa-enabled devices.