First Impressions of Alexa+: Amazon’s AI-Powered Assistant Still Finding Its Groove

Amazon’s Alexa+ represents a bold attempt to modernize its digital assistant in the age of generative AI, but my early experience reveals a system that’s promising yet far from polished. After losing my home in a fire and rebuilding from scratch, I saw this as the perfect chance to reevaluate whether Alexa still deserves a central role in a smart home. The answer, after testing the new AI-powered version, is cautiously hopeful—but with significant room for improvement. The upgrade to Alexa+ launched in March 2025, built on generative AI from models like Amazon Nova and Anthropic. It’s designed to be more than just a voice-controlled device; it’s meant to learn, remember, summarize, and even take actions on your behalf. But the reality of using it feels more like a beta rollout than a finished product. Setting up the Echo Spot was smoother than before—just scan a QR code, and the Alexa app handles the rest. The onboarding process included a brief video and prompts to link accounts, including Google Calendar and email. I connected my calendar, granted permissions to services like Uber and Ticketmaster, and set Spotify as my default music app. While the process was mostly intuitive, the Alexa app itself remains a design mess. Navigation is inconsistent, with key settings buried under obscure menus. For example, setting a default audiobooks service isn’t straightforward—Audible appears in a list of broken links, which is frustrating and confusing. One of Alexa+’s key promises is remembering personal details. I asked her to save my Delta SkyMiles number. She responded instantly, saying it was saved—but then immediately contradicted herself by saying she didn’t have it. After repeating the request, she finally confirmed it was stored, but when I asked to hear it back, she read the number as a long string of digits instead of breaking it down clearly. Not helpful. I tested her ability to summarize emails by forwarding a school notice. She did a decent job pulling out key dates and events, but when I asked her to add those dates to my calendar, she only selected the three closest to today—missing half the important events listed in the email. That’s a critical flaw. If Alexa is supposed to help manage a busy family schedule, she needs to be more thorough and precise. The price tracking feature, another touted benefit, didn’t work at all. When I asked about the Glow Recipe serum, Alexa confirmed she’d set up a tracker—but wouldn’t tell me the current price. When I pressed again, she stayed silent. For the Coach handbag, she correctly noted the blue version was out of stock, but only mentioned the black option, even though the red one was also available. She missed key details and failed to provide complete information. Alexa+ shows flashes of potential—she understands context better than before, remembers conversations, and can summarize documents. But she’s inconsistent, slow, and often fails to follow through on simple requests. The app’s poor design makes it harder to use, and the AI still struggles with basic accuracy. Overall, Alexa+ feels like a work in progress. It’s ambitious and built on the right ideas, but it’s not yet reliable enough to be the smart home’s central brain. In the next part of this series, I’ll test its agentic capabilities—like booking reservations and managing tasks—and see if it can deliver on the promise of true AI assistance. For now, Alexa+ is a step forward, but still far from the intelligent, seamless assistant we’ve been promised.