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."
Amazon's voice assistant struggles highlight a broader industry reality: adding large language models to existing products is harder than it looks. Google has faced similar criticism with Gemini's integration into Assistant, while Apple has taken heat for moving slowly with Apple Intelligence features. The difference is that Amazon bet bigger and louder on AI reviving Alexa's fortunes.
The Echo Show 15, Amazon's largest smart display at 15.6 inches, seemed like the ideal showcase for Alexa+'s capabilities. The screen real estate provides visual feedback that pure audio devices lack, theoretically making AI interactions more intuitive. If Alexa+ can't shine there, prospects look grim for the dozens of other Echo models in Amazon's lineup.
What makes this particularly concerning for Amazon is the smart home market's maturity. After explosive growth in the late 2010s, voice assistant adoption has plateaued. Most households that want a smart speaker already own one. That means Amazon needs existing customers to upgrade or subscribe - a much tougher sell when reviews question the basic quality of the premium offering.
Competitors are watching closely. Google has already integrated Gemini into Nest Hub devices with mixed results, while Apple continues refining Siri with on-device processing that prioritizes privacy over cloud-based AI tricks. If Amazon can't nail the execution, it risks losing the lead it's maintained since essentially creating the smart speaker category.
The review also raises questions about Amazon's AI strategy more broadly. The company has invested billions in Anthropic and built its own large language models through AWS. Yet somehow, that firepower isn't translating into a consumer AI assistant that impresses tech reviewers during extended testing. That disconnect suggests problems deeper than just software bugs.
For consumers who've stuck with Alexa through years of incremental improvements, the Alexa+ stumble stings. Many had hoped generative AI would finally deliver on the promise of a truly conversational assistant - one that understands context, handles complex requests, and feels less like talking to a search engine. Instead, Rogers' experience suggests Alexa+ might actually be worse than sticking with the original.
Amazon hasn't publicly responded to the review, but the company's Alexa team has acknowledged that premium AI features are still rolling out gradually. The question is whether early adopters will tolerate a rough experience while Amazon works out the kinks, or if negative word-of-mouth will poison the well before the service improves.
Amazon's Alexa+ struggles reveal how difficult it is to retrofit generative AI onto existing consumer products, even for tech giants with deep pockets and massive user bases. The disappointing real-world performance threatens not just Amazon's subscription revenue plans, but its decade-long dominance in smart home voice control. As competitors refine their own AI assistants, Amazon faces mounting pressure to fix Alexa+ fast or risk watching customers defect to platforms that actually deliver on the conversational AI promise. For now, the Echo Show 15 review serves as a cautionary tale about overpromising AI capabilities before the technology is truly ready for everyday use.
