Mike attended the new Alexa announcement to find out all the details of Alexa+, Amazon's new 2025 refresh of Alexa. You’ll soon be able to do a lot more with Alexa right from your Echo Show smart display. The AI assistant will be able to understand more conversational language in commands, create new Alexa Routines for your smart home using just your voice, let you know when the price of tickets drops, order Ubers, make up stories for your kids, organize your calendar, and much, much more. Amazon’s upgraded virtual assistant will roll out first in the U.S. for $19.99 per month, but will be free for Amazon Prime subscribers.
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TechTranscript
00:00Amazon introduced Alexa Plus, which is its new voice assistant that's backed by AI.
00:05Do you know how to manage my kid's schedules?
00:07I noticed a birthday party conflicts with thinking of grandma at the airport.
00:10Want me to book her a ride?
00:12Not only can you do a lot more things with it, but you can also use a more conversational
00:16tone to find exactly what you're looking for.
00:19We've told this Alexa that we have a dog.
00:21His name is Buddy.
00:22He's a Bernie Doodle.
00:24And so just asking Alexa, hey, show me some videos.
00:26The cameras have captured a Buddy.
00:27It comes up with a search term of person walking a dog.
00:30Pull those up very quickly.
00:32Very easy to watch them.
00:33Alexa, there was a video the cameras caught back earlier in the month of the kids shoveling
00:40snow.
00:40Let me see.
00:42Sure.
00:42I'd be happy to look for that video of the kids shoveling snow from earlier this month.
00:46Let me search through the recordings for you.
00:49I found a bunch of video.
00:50So just super easy to find anything your Ring cameras may have captured.
00:54And it all comes right up on the Echo Show.
00:56You can just use your voice and it'll sort of do anything for you.
01:00So you can have a whole conversation with it.
01:02Say like, I need to add all these things to my grocery list.
01:05No, wait, I didn't want that.
01:06I want this one instead.
01:08And it'll automatically add those things to your list.
01:11Alexa, I need some things from Amazon Fresh.
01:12Sure.
01:13Let me know what you need.
01:14Get me a big bag of basmati rice.
01:18I want onions, orange juice, aluminum foil, chicken thighs, cinnamon sticks, milk.
01:27Actually make that 2% milk.
01:29Change that orange juice to organic orange juice.
01:35And get rid of the aluminum foil.
01:37I've already got some.
01:38So we should see that change.
01:39That should go.
01:41So the way this works is exactly the same as on any grocery app.
01:44You tap on the search bar and you search for something.
01:46It's going to give you the things you buy frequently first.
01:48Then the popular items.
01:50Then it's going to give you items on sale or whatever the ordering is.
01:53The same thing happens here.
01:54But if there's something else that you want, for example, I don't want this rice.
01:57I can just tap on the item.
01:58I can see alternatives and I can swap in one tap.
02:01We've found in our testing that when this is connected to your actual grocery account,
02:06that most of the time it's getting you the right stuff first time because of this history.
02:11I'm really excited to try Alexa Plus to create new smart home routines.
02:14One of the biggest things is I have so many lights and locks and switches around my house
02:19that it's a little bit confusing to try and manage them all together.
02:23So hopefully Alexa Plus will let me create routines and control all those devices much more easily.
02:30Alexa, turn off the light over in the sitting area.
02:34But again, this is called sofa light.
02:36And so in the current version of Alexa, you'd probably get a response like,
02:39I don't know a device called sitting area light.
02:41But the new model is able to reason that, gosh, sitting area, probably referring to the light by the sofa.
02:46So I'm going to control that one and do it automatically super easily.
02:50You can also do other great things like create routines.
02:53I want to wake up at this time of the morning.
02:55What is it something you would recommend?
02:57And it'll suggest not only what you can do with your smart lights and devices,
03:01but also what music to play and how to set reminders for people and things like that.
03:05Hey, Alexa, I want to create a new workout routine to help me make sure I really get to my workout every morning.
03:12I've created a new morning workout routine for you.
03:15Here's what it does.
03:16Every weekday at 6 a.m., I'll announce time for your morning workout.
03:20Let's get moving on all your devices.
03:23Then I'll play an upbeat workout playlist on your Echo Show 21 for an hour.
03:28That's great, but I may not always be ready at 6.
03:31I'll be doing the workouts in the living room.
03:32And so when you see me down there between 6 and 7, can you kick it off?
03:36I've updated your morning workout routine.
03:39Now it'll kick off when I detect you in the living room between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on weekdays.
03:44The actions remain the same.
03:46I'll announce it's workout time, play an upbeat playlist, and start a 30-minute timer.
03:51Ready to get fit?
03:52Alexa Plus is going to be rolling out in the coming months.
03:55First, two Echo Show devices.
03:58That means the Echo Show 5, 8, 15, and 21.
04:01That's only Alexa devices with screens on them.
04:05Now Amazon is looking to expand it to all Alexa devices.
04:09At least ones made after 2017 is what I've been told, but that'll come further down the road.
04:14Alexa Plus is going to cost $19.99 a month, which is pretty expensive.
04:18However, if you have an Amazon Prime account, it'll be included for free.
04:22So I'm really excited to try out Alexa Plus and see all that it can do.
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