Alexa+, Amazon’s revamped version of Alexa was unveiled Wednesday, bringing the popular voice assistant into the artificial intelligence era.

After a lengthy delay, Amazon has finally jumped on the same AI chatbot bandwagon as everyone else. At an event in New York on Wednesday, Amazon lifted the veil off of the new AI-enhanced version of its Alexa voice assistant, called Alexa+.

Amazon has sold hundreds of millions of Alexa-enabled devices but has lagged behind in upgrading the platform, until now.

Amazon is aiming to catch up in generative artificial intelligence and to reboot its virtual assistant, which has been leapfrogged by powerful chatbots.

Amazon says Alexa+ is able to have conversations with a more natural, humanlike flow and can learn more about a user—such as dietary preferences or allergies—the more it’s used.

There have been concerns about Amazon's souped-up Alexa upgrade, as well as warnings about a controversial new chatbot for teenagers.

Amazon focused heavily on agentic AI features for Alexa+, including the ability to draft and send text messages and emails to contacts. This is not especially new or revolutionary given the recent agentic AI explosion in the tech world, but it's still worth talking about.

At an event in New York on Wednesday, Amazon announced an upgraded Alexa experience — Alexa+ — powered by generative AI technologies. Onstage, Amazon’s devices and services chief Panos Panay called it a “complete re-architecture” of the AI assistant.

Ten years after Amazon debuted its virtual assistant, Alexa is finally being upgraded for the generative AI age. Meet Alexa+.

The effort carries significant weight at Amazon, which has plowed billions of dollars into Alexa since its launch in 2014.

Alexa+ is a big part of Amazon’s attempt to do just that – in addition to upgrading Alexa for the current chatbot era. Amazon is touting Alexa’s new ability to incorporate a user’s ...