Amazon's bid to supercharge Alexa with generative AI isn't going as planned. After spending a month with the Echo Show 15 running the new Alexa+ assistant, Wired senior writer Reece Rogers found the upgraded voice assistant underwhelming at best. The review lands as Amazon races to catch up with OpenAI and Google in the consumer AI assistant wars, betting that a smarter Alexa can justify subscription fees and reverse years of stagnant smart home growth.
Amazon is learning that slapping generative AI onto a voice assistant doesn't automatically make it better. The company's Alexa+ upgrade, which promised to bring ChatGPT-like conversational abilities to its Echo devices, is stumbling badly in real-world use.
Reece Rogers, a senior writer at Wired, spent a month testing the Echo Show 15 with Alexa+ installed in his kitchen. His verdict? "Things have not gone well," according to his hands-on review published today. The blunt assessment arrives at a critical moment for Amazon's smart home ambitions.
The stakes couldn't be higher for Amazon. After dominating the smart speaker market for nearly a decade, the company watched as OpenAI and Google leap-frogged ahead with conversational AI that actually feels intelligent. Alexa+ was supposed to be Amazon's answer, a premium tier that would finally make its assistant worth paying for.
But the execution appears flawed. While Rogers' full review details specific failures, the mere fact that a month-long test produced such a negative headline speaks volumes about where Alexa+ currently stands. This isn't a nitpicky complaint about minor features - it's a fundamental questioning of whether the product works as advertised.
The timing is particularly awkward for Amazon. The company has been openly discussing plans to monetize Alexa through subscriptions, moving away from the device-sales model that's defined the Echo line since 2014. Internal projections reportedly assumed users would happily pay $5 to $10 monthly for a dramatically smarter assistant. Those plans now look shaky if the premium experience can't clear the basic bar of "working well."
