The Alexa+ AI assistant has officially reached more than 100,000 users, according to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who shared the update during the company’s earnings report on Thursday.
This new generative AI version of Alexa, introduced in February, is part of Amazon’s long-term plan to evolve its voice assistant from a scripted tool into a conversational, action-driven agent. Although the current user base is a fraction of the 600 million Alexa-enabled devices deployed globally, it marks meaningful progress in deploying the upgraded system, which is being released in gradual stages.
Alexa+ AI Assistant Promises More Natural Conversations and Agentic Functions
The goal behind Alexa+ AI Assistant is to deliver smoother, human-like interactions and eventually grant the assistant the ability to act independently within third-party apps on users’ behalf. Unlike its predecessor, the Alexa+ model is built to respond fluidly and creatively, echoing capabilities found in OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
However, reports indicate that several highly anticipated features showcased earlier this year—such as integration with platforms like GrubHub, custom story generation, and gift idea brainstorming—have yet to appear in the live version. The timeline for these functionalities remains unspecified.
“We have a lot more functionality that we plan to add in the coming months,” Jassy assured during the call, signaling Amazon’s continued investment in building out Alexa+.
Alexa+ vs. Siri: Competing Visions in AI-Driven Assistants
Jassy also positioned Alexa+ AI Assistant as one of the pioneering AI agents designed for direct consumer use. He acknowledged, though, that the underlying tech still faces reliability hurdles. Most advanced multi-step agents currently deliver between 30% and 60% accuracy, far below the 90% benchmark Amazon hopes to reach with Alexa+’s web-browsing agent, Nova Act.
As Amazon pushes forward, its rollout of Alexa+ appears to be outpacing Apple’s release of its own LLM-powered Siri. On the same day as Amazon’s earnings, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted delays on their end, stating that additional development time was necessary.
Generative AI Adoption in Voice Assistants Remains a Complex Challenge
Both Amazon and Apple are navigating the same obstacles in adapting generative AI to legacy digital assistants—chiefly, the challenge of enabling large language models (LLMs) to interface with external tools and perform real-world actions like setting timers or reading messages. These integrations are crucial for transforming AI chat agents into fully functional assistants but remain a technical challenge for the industry at large.
As Amazon accelerates the deployment of its Alexa+ AI assistant, it moves one step closer to redefining how voice assistants operate in the AI age, even as the path to seamless agentic capabilities remains under development.
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