Amazon launches Alexa+, and marketers want ads

Amazon just raised the walls of its walled garden.

Last week, the company finally pulled back the curtain on its long-awaited Alexa overhaul, a chattier, more personalized and supposedly more useful version of its voice assistant. Generative AI powers this new version, called Alexa+, which is available beyond just Echo devices, spreading across car infotainment systems, connected TVs and anything else running Alexa.

This is Amazon’s latest attempt to deliver on the grand vision it pitched a decade ago: making voice as intuitive for controlling devices as touch. So far it’s been more gimmick than game-changer, but early reactions to this newest update suggest that could change. If it does, the bigger question isn’t what Alexa can do, it is how Amazon plans to cash in.

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