Alexa Plus: Feeding the Assistant, E-mail, Study Guides, and Recipes with a Live Demo of Amazon’s Devices and Services
The other big new feature is Alexa+’s ability to learn new information you provide. You can feed the assistant documents, email, study guides, and recipes, and it will memorize them, making it easier for you to find information later. You can ask the speaker a question like “Can I add solar panels to my house?” using a document from your homeowner’s association. The rules will be reference by it. If you’ve used any of the recipes that you’ve written before, you can ask specific questions about the ingredients or the amount of food you’re serving.
During a live demo, Panos Panay, who heads up Amazon’s Devices and Services department, used an Echo Show to snap a photo of the live audience and asked whether folks looked energetic. A crowd applauds at the start of the interaction, and the picture was analyzed by Alexa+ and she pointed out things like how people had laptops open, and that all eyes were on Panay.
Free early access to Alexa Plus will begin in late March 2025 in the United States for customers with eligible Echo Show devices. They’ll get notifications via email and devices after they’re granted access to the software, but they need to use it.