Amazon’s AI Alexa subscription may arrive in October

According to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, Amazon is getting ready to launch the biggest update to Alexa since the voice assistant first burst onto the scene. All the way back in September 2023, Amazon teased a more powerful version of Alexa that would use AI to make the voice assistant far more capable, with the ability to have conversations with far better contextual understanding, and without having to repeatedly use the “Alexa” wake word.

According to the documents seen by the Washington Post, the new update may finally be released in mid-October, with access to the upgraded version of Alexa requiring a paid subscription that could cost as much as $10 per month.

The new Alexa has the potential to be far more useful

AI-powered features can make Alexa relevant again

Alexa may not have been the first voice assistant, but she’s one of the most popular, thanks to Amazon’s tactic of building her into low-cost smart speakers as well as other companies building her into their own products . Many of us have at least one Alexa device in our homes, and they’re affordable enough that you can place them all over your home.

However, despite having been around for almost a decade, Alexa hasn’t really changed much at all. She’s still useful for asking about the weather or playing music and being able to control your smart home devices by voice is still a major selling point, but in the era of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini , the current version of Alexa now feels dated and lacking in features.

The new version of Alexa is intended to change all that. Using the power of generative AI and large language models, the updated Alexa will be far more capable. When the changes to Alexa were announced last year, we were given a sneak peek of just what Alexa will be able to do. In the demonstration, Dave Limp, who was chief of devices and services at Amazon at the time, held a long-flowing conversation with Alexa, without needing to say the “Alexa” wake word each time.

He started by asking how his favorite football team was doing. Alexa remembered the team from previous conversations. He then said that he was planning to have a watch party for the next game and asked Alexa for some suggestions for sides to go with the food he was planning to cook for the game. He asked Alexa for the weather for game day, and then asked Alexa to create a message inviting his friends over, and finally had the message sent to his phone. All of this was done without Alexa needing to ask for additional information; all the previous context was extracted from the conversation.

One of the best smart home features that was teased was the ability to create complex Alexa routines, just by asking Alexa. The example that was given was asking Alexa to turn on the coffee machine, open the blinds, dim the lights in the study, and play the morning news at 8 am every day. A routine was instantly created, something that currently takes much longer to do manually . It was also possible to give multiple commands at once, such as asking Alexa to turn off the lights, lock the front door, and power off the TV. It was even possibly to give vague commands such as “make the lights look spooky”, which Alexa was able to follow.

It’s unclear how many of these features will be available when the new version of Alexa is launched, but hopefully all of these features will make it into Alexa at some point in the future.

The new Alexa may not arrive in October, but she’s getting closer

The updated features will come at a cost, however

It might be a little early to get too excited about the new Alexa launching in October, however. The Washington Post published a similar article earlier this year relating to another internal document which stated that the new Alexa was due to launch in September 2024.

However, it does appear that the new Alexa is getting closer. If it doesn’t launch in mid-October, then we certainly shouldn’t have too much longer to wait. One thing that does seem almost certain, however, is that we’ll need to pay for the privilege of using the new updated Alexa. The Washington Post’s leaked document reportedly states that the subscription could be as much as $10 per month. Alexa will need some significant new skills in order to convince people to pay for something that they currently use for free.