Amazon’s Alexa+ (or Plus, depending on your numerical literacy) is a bold move for any AI company in the 21st century — it’s AI that you have to pay for. But if you do happen to pay for the service, you’ll soon be able to access it via your web browser.
Alexa+ the internet
According to Amazon, its paying Early Access customers “want Alexa wherever they are,” resulting in a new browser-based version of the service. It’s supposed to permit the company’s AI to “help in every aspect of [a customer’s] day, and to truly serve as a personal assistant.” So, just like Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, then?
Amazon’s service will do all the things Google’s Assistant, back before the term ‘AI agent’ was in common usage, was supposed to do. Lists, meal-planning, recipes, document sorting and retrieval, plus a little smart home control, are thrown in — a nod to Alexa’s roots as a smart assistant.
The company reckons that its “new interaction model” and “new modalities”, plus a refreshed “agent-forward design” (none of these terms mean very much) in the mobile app version of the AI, will make the assistant “accessible across every surface.”
The browser-based version of the service is already active, but don’t get too excited if you’re South African. The page works, but the service doesn’t. It’s geographically locked, for now, meaning you could probably use a VPN (and a paid Amazon subscription) to access it. Or, you know, ChatGPT is right there.
