Amazon has disabled two key privacy features in its Alexa smart speakers, in a push to introduce artificial intelligence-powered "agentic capabilities" and turn a profit from the popular devices.

Amazon’s Alexa+ service is rolling out on March 28, and with it supposedly comes a more personalized, intuitive, and powerful digital assistant thanks to its underlying generative AI technology. But for the new features to work, the company is asking a lot from its Echo and smart device users —whether or not they choose to use Alexa+ at all.

Everything you say to your Echo device will be sent to Amazon to improve Alexa+, the tech giant’s new subscription-based assistant.