Amazon just gave Alexa its biggest upgrade in a decade – and old Echo devices will support it
Maria Diaz/ZDNETAmazon’s early-year Devices and Services event took place today, and the company made it clear that AI will continue to be at the center of its hardware universe. Driving the buzzword of the century is Alexa, arguably the most popular virtual assistant in the world. SVP of Devices and Services Panos Panay suggested that millions of new customers use it every day during the event. Also: Everything Amazon announced at its Devices and Services event todayAnd that’s likely true: Alexa is at the core of Amazon’s most prominent hardware products, including Echo speakers and Fire TVs. Today, the company showcased what’s next for its virtual assistant, now named Alexa+, as it looks to compete with the likes of Google, OpenAI, and others. The new Alexa will be “something that understands you, that can actually take action,” Panay teased, and it will work with tens of thousands of services from Amazon partners. Here’s a rundown of the best new features coming with Alexa+ and how much it will cost. 1. Multimodal, agentic interactions Powered by LLMs, Alexa+ can now process visual information via your device’s cameras to understand and answer questions. In one instance, Alexa was asked to describe the crowd’s excitement and enthusiasm at the event by leveraging the Echo Show 15’s front-facing camera. While its responses were two to three sentences long, they were descriptive and dictated in a fairly approachable tone.The agentic capabilities of Alexa+ extend to browsing, with the ability to navigate the internet via Alexa.com and complete tasks for you on Amazon-partnered websites. For example, Alexa was asked to book a professional repairman for a damaged appliance. It then searched for a nearby repair service and booked an appointment via Thumbtack. Also: 16 incredibly useful things Alexa can do on Amazon EchoIn another demo, a presenter worked with Alexa to build out a shopping list, suggesting items to add or remove throughout the conversation. Surprisingly, the feature supported shopping partners beyond Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh. As Alexa responds, a flowing blue animation appears on the bottom of the device screen. This new change reflects Amazon’s more expressive UI. 2. Conversational chain of commands Besides responding more naturally, with sprinkles of humor, another big unveiling showed how Alexa can now fulfill tasks throughout your daily apps and services, including your calendar and emails. It can book a dinner for you and send invitations for that to your closest contacts, too. We’ve seen similar agentic capabilities with Google’s Gemini. Also: Ring just made outdoor security more affordable with its new $100 2K cameraIn a demo, the virtual assistant was asked to recommend local pizzerias, to which it pulled top-rated storefronts via Yelp. Another example included asking Alexa to remember things, such as “Mary likes Greek and Indian food and is vegetarian but doesn’t like peanut butter.” It did just that without a question. 3. Refreshed home screen on Echo Show Amazon also unveiled a series of new widgets alongside its refreshed Echo Show home screen, including ones that surface recipes, recent apps, weather, shopping lists, and connected smart home devices. Also: 5 Amazon Alexa privacy settings you should change right awayThe adaptive display leverages the larger screen real estate to display relevant information depending on whether you’re far away from the device or closer to it. For example, the Echo Show will display photos and personalized content from afar and switch to a more detailed layout when you approach it. 4. Conducting music with voice For a music demo, Panay asked Alexa, “What’s the song Bradley Cooper sings… it’s like in a duet?” to which it answered, “Shallow with Lady Gaga from the movie *A Star Is Born*.” More impressively, you can now dictate where music is playing from if you have multiple Alexa-enabled speakers in your house. Also: The best Alexa devices of 2025: Expert tested and recommendedFor example, you can ask Alexa to play music on the left or right, with the assumption that speakers are mounted in designated areas. We’ll have to see exactly how reliable this is in real-world tests. And for Amazon’s last trick, Panay asked Alexa to skip to the scene in the movie when “Shallow” is sung, and it did — on the second try. More
