Amazon launches its redesigned Alexa+ assistant in India, emphasising enhanced conversation capabilities, localisation, and agentic AI to compete in a growing smart home and consumer AI market.
Amazon is bringing its redesigned Alexa+ assistant to India, pitching it as a more conversational service that goes beyond the original voice controls for lights, speakers and appliances. Michele Butti, vice president of Alexa International, told The Indian Express that the newer version is built for a different kind of interaction, one that can handle longer exchanges, infer intent more accurately and respond in a less mechanical tone.
The company says Alexa+ is powered by generative AI and is intended to do more than answer questions. According to Amazon’s own materials, the assistant can manage smart homes, make reservations, suggest music and provide personalised recommendations through natural conversation. It is already available to Prime members in the US at no extra cost, with access through voice, the browser and the Alexa app.
In India, Amazon is starting with an early access rollout on Echo Show devices, with support for English, Hindi and Hinglish. After the early access phase, the company says Prime members will receive Alexa+ at no additional cost, while non-Prime users will pay Rs 2,000 a month for a standalone subscription. That pricing and launch structure underline Amazon’s attempt to position the service as a premium consumer AI product rather than a simple smart speaker add-on.
Teena Sidana, Amazon India’s country manager for Alexa, said the company had adapted the system to local conditions, including noisy households, code-mixed speech and regional preferences. Amazon says its automatic speech recognition has been fine-tuned for Indian homes, where multiple people, background noise and mixed-language commands are common. The company also says the assistant has been adjusted to work with local smart-home brands and services.
Amazon is also leaning on Alexa+ as an early example of agentic AI, meaning software that can carry out tasks on a user’s behalf. The company says the assistant will be able to order food, book tables and handle other practical requests, with local partners including Swiggy, Zomato and EasyDiner. It has also tied in regional content providers such as PTI and India Today, suggesting that localisation is becoming central to Amazon’s strategy as it tries to make Alexa relevant in a market where voice assistants must compete with both chatbots and rapidly expanding consumer AI tools.
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