{"id":2713,"date":"2025-05-20T03:59:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T03:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2025-05-20T03:59:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T03:59:33","slug":"is-anyone-actually-using-alexa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/archives\/2713","title":{"rendered":"Is Anyone Actually Using Alexa+?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\nAmazon says ‘hundreds of thousands of customers’ have access to the newly updated voice assistant. But there’s little evidence of that online, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alexa<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Credit: Michael Nagle\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon\u2019s newly updated AI voice assistant Alexa+ officiallystarted rolling outto select customers roughly six weeks ago, but real-world users are hard to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reutersclaimsit searched “dozens” of news sites, as well as social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, X, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, andTwitch, but was unable to find any verifiable Alexa+ users. Reuters did find two users on Reddit who claimed they had used the updated tool, but these users weren\u2019t able to provide any hard evidence they had really accessed it or verify their identities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon says the newly revamped Alexa will provide a more humanlike conversational flow, describing it as the end of “Alexa voice”at April’s product reveal.The tech giant hasalso promisednumerous ambitious-sounding “agentic AI” features that “will enable Alexa to navigate the internet in a self-directed way to complete tasks on your behalf, behind the scenes.” For example, arranging to have the user’s oven fixed with a service provider, without any intervention beyond the initial command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tech company largely denied the reports in a statement to Reuters, saying that \u201chundreds of thousands of customers now have access to Alexa+,\u201d adding that though many of the users are Amazon employees, \u201cthe overwhelming majority are customers that requested early access.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>>>Replacement battery for Amazon Kindle Paperwhite 5<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Avi Greengart, lead analyst at Techsponential, commented that the irregularities in the Alexa+ release fit \u201ca pattern of a lot of companies announcing services or products when they are close to being ready, but not quite\u2014that last mile is a lot farther away than they anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know the Alexa+ project was hit by numerous setbacksahead of the official launch. In February, the AI upgrade was delayed by a full month past its initial deadline, reportedly due to a \u201cnew version of the assistant giving incorrect answers to test questions at a recent meeting,\u201d according to an anonymous employee who spoke to The Washington Post.<\/em> The project had previously been delayed around the time of the US presidential election in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>>>Replacement battery for Amazon Kindle 58-000226<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it does eventually roll out fully, Alexa+ will cost $19.99 a month but will be free for Amazon Prime subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon says ‘hundreds of thousands of customers’ have access to the newly updated voice assistant. But there’s little evidence of that online, Reuters reports. (Credit: Michael Nagle\/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Amazon\u2019s newly updated AI voice assistant Alexa+ officiallystarted rolling outto select customers roughly six weeks ago, but real-world users are hard to find. Reutersclaimsit searched … Continue reading “Is Anyone Actually Using Alexa+?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oriccabattery.co.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}