What Alexa+ actually is
Alexa+ is Amazon's attempt to make their voice assistant feel less like a glorified timer-setter. The pitch is a more conversational, context-aware AI that can handle follow-up questions, manage tasks across apps, and generally behave less like a search engine that lives in a speaker. Prime members get early access free. Non-Prime users can trial it too, which is decent of them.
Honestly, if you've used ChatGPT or even Google's assistant recently, you'll know the bar has shifted. Alexa's been left behind a bit. This is Amazon trying to close that gap.
The lived experience, such as it is
I asked it to help rebook a restaurant reservation mid-conversation, and it held the context reasonably well. Not perfectly. There were moments where it felt like it had forgotten what we were talking about, like a mate who's had one too many and keeps losing the thread. But it's a step up from the old Alexa, which would essentially restart every single exchange from scratch.
Where it still frustrates: anything outside Amazon's ecosystem gets wobbly fast. Third-party integrations are hit and miss.
Who this is actually for
If you're already deep into Amazon's world, Prime Video, Ring, Fire tablets, this upgrade makes reasonable sense. You'll notice the difference.
If you're not a Prime member and your Echo mostly collects dust, a free trial is still worth a poke around. Just don't expect it to replace a proper AI assistant anytime soon. It's not half bad, but it's not quite there yet either.