Alexa+ now available in Australia – Don’t pay for it though!

Amazon is a giant business, an amazing company doing things that most people don’t even realise.  Today, they launch Alexa+ in Australia for a staggering monthly subscription cost of $29.99 and even Amazon doesn’t really want you to pay that.

Alexa+ is the name given to the AI enabled upgrade for Alexa, the voice assistant built into Amazon Echo speakers and available in Australia for the last eight years.

To use Alexa+ you’ll need to be in the early access trials, by buying a new Echo speaker, or signing up to the Alexa+ monthly plan.  But wait, instead of $29.99 per month ($359.88 per year), just make sure you’re an Amazon Prime member – that’s $79 a year, or $9.99 per month.

Yep, for a third of the price, you can get Alexa+ along with Free Amazon shipping, Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video and a few more things too for good measure.

Talking to Michele Butti – Vice President Alexa International at Amazon, I asked directly what the heck was that all about.

His response, “I’m surprised that you are surprised by that, because you just said you’re using your Prime benefits a lot. We always meant to make Prime the best subscription in the world… I think what Jeff (Bezos) said [is] that it has to be irresponsible for a customer not to get Prime, because every single benefit can be more valuable than the price of Prime. You can watch so much content, free content on Prime Video that is way more valuable than the price of Prime. You can get so much faster free shipping that is much more valuable than the price. And the same is going to be with Alexa, with music. So every single benefit could independently be more valuable than the price of a Prime membership.”

So basically, Jeff Bezos knows that the best subscription is one that just screams value.  I mean think about it, if pushed, what would be the last one you’d keep. Amazon would surely be close to winning that for everyone?

Back to Alexa+.  Think of this version as just so smart you won’t believe it.

Instead of saying “Alexa” to get an answer and following up again with “Alexa” and another question, you can have a free-flowing conversation.  Ask Alexa advice on how to handle a situation and you’re in a back and forth chat.  Similar to ChatGPT’s voice model if you’ve ever used that.

My early demos showed it as rather slow to respond, so I hope that time can be cut down.

And, Alexa+ can take actions for you – OpenTable restaurant bookings are the main first action enabled, have a chat about what might be a good dinner location for Saturday Night and you can actually make that booking.

To make this work in Australia, the local team have been working to ensure we’re not caught out by a US version of the knowledge and voice.

Not only does Alexa+ sound utterly Australian, she gets what a servo, brekky, sickie and all our general slang means.  And that’s important!

Overall, it’s a huge huge update for Alexa.

But don’t worry, you can keep using Alexa like normal, she’s just able to do more if you choose!