Alexa Plus runs your smart home better, but misses day‑manager marks

Alexa Plus is Amazon’s revamped voice assistant, rebuilt on generative AI, the same kind of technology behind chatbots like ChatGPT. That lets it understand everyday speech instead of exact commands. It works on Echo speakers and displays, Fire TV and other devices with Alexa built in, plus the Alexa app and the Alexa.com website.

It entered early access in 2025 and launched fully in February 2026. It’s available in the US and Canada, and in early access in the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, India and several European countries. The old Alexa remains free on Echo devices if you don’t want to switch.

Yes. For controlling a smart home, Alexa Plus came out on top in a year of side-by-side testing, ahead of Google’s Gemini for Home and Siri in Apple Home. The big win is that you can talk normally. Say “I’m cold” or “make it brighter in here” and it works out what to do.

It’s also much faster than it was. Simple questions and timers now take three to five seconds, down from 10 to 15 seconds in 2025. You can string several commands together, like locking the door, turning off the lights, lowering the thermostat and starting the robot vacuum, and they happen in one go. If it gets something wrong, a quick follow-up usually fixes it.

The standout feature is creating routines by voice. Tell Alexa you want the porch lights to come on when you step outside, and it sets up the routine using a motion sensor, no app required. You can also change routines on the fly, such as making a bathroom light stay on for 30 minutes instead of 15.

Cooking is where Alexa Plus shines brightest. You can photograph a recipe, send it through the app, then cook while asking questions like what temperature to preheat the oven or how many ounces are in 160 grams. It remembers which recipe you’re on, though it can still lose track. It’s the best voice-assistant cooking experience in testing so far.

Other upgrades are just as practical:

• Calendar: email or upload documents and photos, and Alexa pulls events into your calendar. A whole school schedule can go in this way.
• Shopping: upload screenshots of a supply list, and Alexa finds the items and adds them to your Amazon cart.
• General knowledge: the old Alexa was poor at answering questions, and the new one is far better.

If it gets too chatty, a Brief personality mode keeps answers short.

Amazon’s push to make Alexa run your life is where things fall apart. Three problems stand out.

Memory. A feature called Remember This is supposed to store facts you tell it. In testing, Alexa remembered a child’s school one day, then confidently gave traffic directions to a different school the next. For a while it even forgot who its owner was and kept asking for introductions.

Unfinished tasks. Integrations with Uber Eats, Thumbtack, OpenTable and Ticketmaster feel half-built. One attempt to order a Chick-fil-A meal through Uber Eats took 20 minutes, with the screen pushing a milkshake nobody asked for. Booking an electrician through Thumbtack ended with Alexa simply handing over a phone number to call.

Accuracy. Alexa still guesses at what you mean. It sometimes fails to start a coffee machine it normally controls well, and it gets dates and times wrong, once offering a reminder for a football game that had already started.

The biggest complaint may be ads. Echo Show smart displays now regularly show ads for Amazon products between your photos and the clock, even if you switch off homescreen content, and Amazon recently added video ads. Amazon’s Daniel Rausch says the ads are curated to be relevant. To get rid of them on the homescreen, you need Amazon’s Photo Gallery Unlimited add-on, which is charged monthly for each device. If ads bother you, an Echo speaker without a screen avoids the issue.

Here is what you’ll pay for Alexa Plus itself in the US:

• Free on the web, in the Alexa app and on Fire TV.
• Included with Amazon Prime on compatible Echo devices.
• $19.99 a month on Echo devices if you don’t have Prime.

There’s also a privacy trade-off. Using Alexa on an Echo means your voice recordings go to Amazon for automatic analysis, and Amazon already knows a lot about your household from your shopping.

If you have Prime and an Echo, switching on Alexa Plus is an easy call. It costs nothing extra and makes smart home control, routines and cooking much better. Expect to spend time cleaning up old devices and routines first: getting Alexa Plus to work smoothly can mean rebuilding your setup, and the Alexa app is still clumsy for that job.

If you want a true personal assistant to book things, order food and remember your family’s details, it isn’t there yet. For texts and traffic-free routes, Siri and Google remain better options. You can try Alexa Plus free at Alexa.com before deciding.