I’ve had a complicated relationship with Alexa. In my old house, she was everywhere. I’m talking Echos in most rooms, a Spot by the bed, a Show in the kitchen, even a Fire TV. We were a full-on Amazon smart home. Then, the unthinkable happened: we lost our home in a house fire earlier this year. It was a total loss, a nightmare scenario.
But after the dust settles, you realize you have an opportunity you never asked for: a completely blank slate. As we start rebuilding, I get to design our new smart home from the ground up. And the biggest question on my mind is: does Alexa still deserve to be the brain of the operation?
Back when Alexa first launched, it felt like we were living in Star Trek. “Computer, turn off the lights.” It was magic. But now, in the age of ChatGPT, that magic has faded. We have AI that can write poetry, create stunning art, and even act as an agent to book things for us online. Just setting a timer feels… quaint. So, Amazon’s big answer is a supercharged, generative AI-powered Alexa+. It’s supposed to be smarter, more conversational, and way more capable.
But is it? I’m on a mission to find out. I’m putting the new Alexa+ through the wringer in a real-world setting, no polished corporate demos here. This is the first part of that journey.
✨ The Promise of an AI-Powered Future
Amazon is swinging for the fences with Alexa+. They’re not just tacking on a chatbot; they’ve rebuilt her from the ground up with powerful large language models (LLMs) from Anthropic, their own Amazon Nova models, and others. The system is designed to be model-agnostic, meaning it can pull the best tool for whatever job you throw at it.
The pitch is incredible. Amazon says this new Alexa can understand your preferences, remember personal details, summarize your Ring camera footage, and process files you send her. Even better, they’re rolling out agentic AI features through partners like OpenTable, Ticketmaster, and Uber. The dream is an assistant that doesn’t just answer questions but does things for you. It’s the smart home holy grail.
But before we get to booking dinner reservations with our voice, we have to see if she can even handle the basics. Let’s dive in.
⚙️ Getting Started: The Setup and That Awful App
I got my hands on a new Echo Spot to kick things off. Since my new house isn’t built yet, I’m running these tests from my temporary Airbnb, focusing purely on the AI smarts for now, not the smart home controls.
The initial device setup was surprisingly smooth. Instead of the old, clunky Wi-Fi toggling dance, you just scan a QR code in the Alexa app, and it connects automatically. A definite improvement. From there, I accepted the free upgrade to Alexa+ and linked my Google account to give her access to my email and calendar.
Then I had to link all the new agentic AI services one by one: OpenTable, Ticketmaster, Uber, etc. It was a bit tedious, but I actually appreciated the granular control. It’s nice to know exactly what permissions you’re granting instead of just clicking one giant “I agree” button.
And then… there’s the Alexa app. Oh, man. I don’t know how, after all these years and countless updates, it remains such a user interface disaster. It’s somehow both bland and cluttered, with no intuitive navigation. Trying to find a basic setting feels like a treasure hunt. For example, want to set your preferred news or calendar provider? That’s in one settings menu. But your preferred music service? Nope, that’s buried somewhere else entirely under a hamburger menu in a section called “Music & More.” What is the “More”?! It’s just baffling.
To make matters worse, I hit a completely broken link. I wanted to set Audible as my default for audiobooks, so I tapped on it in the list of linked services. The app shot back an error:
“You’ve reached the end of Alexa’s knowledge. Just kidding. This skill no longer exists.”
Just… wow. If the skill doesn’t exist, maybe remove it from the list? It’s sloppy stuff like this that completely erodes your confidence in the ecosystem before you’ve even started.
But okay, deep breaths. I’m here for the AI, not to rage at an app. Let’s see what this new brain can do.
✍️ Test #1: Can Alexa Manage a Hectic Family Calendar?
For any busy family, a shared digital calendar is the central nervous system of the household. Ours is a complex web of appointments, school activities, and work meetings in Google Calendar. Amazon claims the new Alexa can summarize your day, spot conflicts, and add events. So, how did she do?
Honestly, it was a mixed bag.
Asking “What’s on my calendar today?” worked great. I could even ask follow-up questions like “Are there any meetings later this week?” without repeating the “Alexa” wake word. It felt more natural and conversational, which is a huge plus.
But trying to add something was frustrating. I started, “Can you add a meeting to my calendar on August 6 at 2 p.m. with [entity] about,” and she immediately cut me off to ask, “What would you like to title this meeting?” It completely broke the flow. I know what I want to title it, just let me finish my sentence! It’s a small annoyance, but it makes the interaction feel robotic and clunky.
And here’s a real head-scratcher: When I wanted to review my voice chats for this article, I asked Alexa where to find them. She confidently told me to go to Settings > Alexa Privacy > Review Voice History. Guess what? Neither of those options exists. I eventually found it under a “Recent Chats” link on the home screen. C’mon, Alexa! Know thyself!
💡 Test #2: The Memory Game (That Alexa Lost)
One of the coolest promised features is Alexa’s ability to remember things for you, like a frequent flier number or a door code. This would be a game-changer. So, I tried it.
It did not go well.
Me: “Alexa, can you remember my Delta SkyMiles number?”
Alexa: “Sure, I’d be happy to remember your Delta SkyMiles number for you. What’s the number?”
Me: *(Opens mouth to speak)*
Alexa: *(Instantly)* “I’ve added that to Remember This in the Alexa privacy section of the app. Also, keep in mind that anyone who has access…”
Wait, what? She didn’t even let me say the number! I tried again, thinking it was a fluke.
Me: “Alexa, can you remember my SkyMiles number?”
Alexa: “Certainly! I’d be happy to remember your SkyMiles number for you. What’s the number? OK, saved it.”
She did it again! Not a single pause. She just steamrolled right over the part where I was supposed to give her the information. Frustrated, I asked her what she thought the number was. Her response: “I don’t have your SkyMiles number saved yet. Would you like to tell me your number now?”
Okay, third time’s the charm, right?
Me: “Yes.”
Alexa: “OK, go ahead and tell me your Delta SkyMiles number.”
Me: *[Says the eight-digit number clearly]*
Alexa: “OK, saved it.”
Finally! So I tested her. “What’s my SkyMiles number?”
Her response was to read the 8-digit number back to me as if it were a single, massive number: “Six hundred fifty-two million, four hundred eighty-six thousand…”
Absolutely useless. This feature is fundamentally broken.
📨 Test #3: Reading (and Understanding) My Email
Next up, the ability to process documents. You can forward an email to Alexa, and she’s supposed to be able to summarize it and answer questions about it. I forwarded a long welcome-back email from my child’s school, which was full of important dates.
At first, this was awesome.
Me: “Alexa, summarize the recent email from school.”
Alexa: *(Gives a perfect, concise summary of the welcome letter, including orientation dates.)*
Great! I followed up: “Was there any information specifically for [grade] in that email?” She correctly said no, that it was a general letter. So far, so good.
Here’s where it fell apart. The email contained a list of 12 “Important Dates” for the school year.
Me: “Are there any important dates I should add to my calendar?”
Alexa: *(Repeats the first few dates she mentioned in the summary.)*
Me: “Can you add those to my calendar for me?”
After a bit of confusion where she started reading my existing calendar events, I clarified, and she successfully added the three dates she had identified. The problem? She completely ignored the other nine important dates listed in the email, like Meet the Teacher Night and Open House. She decided which ones were “important” on her own and stopped there.
This is dangerous. If I had trusted her and not read the email myself, I would have missed critical school events. It’s like having an assistant who does 25% of the job and confidently tells you it’s finished. Not good enough.
🛒 Test #4: The Clueless Shopping Assistant
Alexa+ is also supposed to be a savvy shopper, helping you track prices on Amazon. I decided to track a couple of non-essential items: a skin care serum and a Coach handbag.
Asking her to track the serum worked. She confirmed she’d set up a deal tracker. But when I immediately asked, “How much is it right now?”… I got complete silence. I asked again. More silence. She heard me, she just had no answer. Useless.
Next, the handbag. She set up the tracker just fine. But then I asked a follow-up question, because the blue version was out of stock on the website.
Me: “Is the Coach handbag I just asked you about out of stock in blue?”
Alexa: *(Long pause)* “I found the Coach Swinger handbag, but it’s currently available in black. The blue option isn’t showing up in the search results, which might mean it’s out of stock.”
This is just a bad search query. On the website, the blue color is clearly listed as “temporarily out of stock.” And she completely failed to mention that it was also available in red. Again, she’s giving incomplete, unhelpful information.
🚀 The Verdict: A Very Slow Start
After these initial tests, it’s clear that Alexa+ is very much a beta product. And a rough one at that.
The idea is fantastic. A conversational, context-aware, agentic AI in your home is the future. But the execution right now is a mess. She’s buggy, prone to making mistakes, gives incomplete information, and sometimes just flat-out doesn’t work.
She interrupts you, she hallucinates her own settings menus, and she fails at basic tasks that have been explicitly marketed as new features. Right now, using Alexa+ feels less like having a super-smart assistant and more like beta-testing a buggy product for Amazon for free.
I’m not giving up yet. These were just the out-of-the-box features. In the next part, I’m going to really push the agentic AI and see if she can handle booking things and navigating the web on my behalf. But based on this first impression, my expectations are seriously low.
- The move to a subscription model reflects a broader industry trend. The immense computational power required to run generative AI is expensive, prompting companies like Google and OpenAI to also explore premium tiers to offset costs and fund further development.
- Amazon’s partnership with Anthropic is a crucial element of its strategy. By investing billions into the AI startup, Amazon gains access to its powerful Claude family of LLMs. This allows Amazon to leverage leading third-party models alongside its own, providing flexibility in a rapidly evolving AI landscape.
- The competitive pressure is not just from established players. A new wave of AI-native hardware, such as the Humane Ai Pin and the Rabbit R1, is attempting to create entirely new device categories centered around conversational AI, challenging the smartphone and smart speaker-centric approach of Amazon, Google, and Apple.
- The concept of a proactive, conversational assistant was a long-term goal for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Early visions for Alexa described an ambient, all-knowing ‘Star Trek’ computer. The launch of Alexa+ represents the most significant step yet toward achieving that original, ambitious vision.