Islamabad, May 2, 2025: Amazon has officially launched its advanced generative AI assistant, Alexa+, reaching over 100,000 users, as revealed by CEO Andy Jassy during the company’s latest earnings call.
While this figure is still modest compared to the massive 600 million Alexa devices already in homes worldwide, the rollout marks an important step forward for Amazon’s ambitions in the AI space.
First introduced back in February, Alexa+ was promised to arrive gradually in phases over the year.
The new version is designed to let users engage in more natural, conversational interactions, moving beyond the rigid, pre-programmed responses of the original Alexa and Siri.
With Alexa+, Amazon aims to offer “agentic” abilities — meaning the assistant can eventually handle tasks within third-party apps on behalf of the user.
This is a major shift, making Alexa more like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, which can generate dynamic, context-aware answers in real time.
However, early reports, including one from The Washington Post, highlight that the Alexa+ currently being deployed is missing several highly anticipated features.
For example, it cannot yet connect to outside services like GrubHub, craft custom bedtime stories, or suggest unique gift ideas — all functions that were showcased during its February demo.
Amazon has not provided a clear timeline for when these capabilities will be added.
On the call, Jassy emphasized that Alexa+ represents one of the very first consumer-facing AI agents with real action-taking abilities. Still, he was transparent about the limitations, admitting that such AI agents remain “basic” and often “inaccurate.”
At present, most multi-step AI systems achieve success rates between just 30% and 60%. Amazon has set an ambitious target for Alexa+’s web-browsing backbone, Nova Act, to push that number to 90% accuracy in the near future.
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Interestingly, Amazon’s progress with Alexa+ seems to be outpacing Apple’s efforts to upgrade Siri with large language model (LLM) technology.
During Apple’s concurrent earnings call, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged delays, saying the company needs “more time” to finish development work on the new Siri.
Both tech giants are facing similar challenges: integrating LLMs with external tools and systems to enable assistants like Alexa and Siri to perform real-world tasks — such as setting reminders or sending messages — reliably and efficiently.
As the race heats up, consumers can expect rapid advancements but also bumps along the road.
