Alexa+ has landed on British soil, and as customers wait with anticipation to try the AI-powered virtual assistant, it’s a great opportunity to look back.
Since the service launched in the US last spring, it has already seen some big changes as customers navigate a new world of smart aids and agent AI. Now that the service is coming to the UK, there’s also been a lot of naturalization work to help Alexa+ navigate our regional accents, idioms and culture – right down to understanding some of our favorite snacks.
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Rausch says the early results have been somewhat behind the scenes. “Engagement with Alexa+ is up two to three times over the original Alexa,” he explains, quietly confident as he discusses the path so far. “Even things I didn’t think could grow, like music increasing by 25% in terms of streaming time when a customer turns on Alexa+.
“It’s just nicer… It’s not like customers have 25% more time!” he adds, though he was keen to highlight that the overall increase in engagement is very much due to some of the exciting new features facilitated by a smarter and faster Alexa. “In the US, I’ll use it to book carpools, or we’ll book a table for lunch together. It’s all what raises that level of engagement.”
Of course, it’s never all roses, and certainly not with an Early Access program. Still, Rausch takes a positive view of these realizations. “I’ve never shipped a product so easy to report a bug,” he jokes, reflecting on what I can only imagine was a hectic first year in the service. “You can just tell Alexa what feedback you have, and that helps us learn that there’s an edge to grind somewhere.”
One example of note was the new Alexa+ voice and cadence. “Some customers—it’s a minority of them—they don’t like the new voices,” Rausch says. So now Amazon offers a wider range of voices, and when Alexa+ introduces herself, she gives you the chance to change her settings.
Of course, there may still be concerns about always-on devices when it comes to privacy and security, but with 10 years of service in the UK to go with their years of coverage in the US, Rausch seems confident in Amazon’s approach. “Customers have the same degree of transparency and control [with Alexa+]… it turns out that if you build products with transparency and control, you also generally meet all regulations and legal requirements.”
Customers who already know their way around Alexa’s Privacy Hub will be happy to know that the service, with all its features, remains the same for Alexa+. “You can see everything that Alexa has heard, you can delete things… you can control all your data settings around training. Everything is in the same place, and that applies to the Alexa service as a whole.”
While all US Prime customers with compatible devices can now sign up for Alexa+ (or pay a $19.99 standalone subscription), the free beta program in the UK is so far limited to the Amazon Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 11, Echo Dot Max and Echo Studio. If you already have one at home, sign up for an Early Access invite now.
It will probably take roughly the same time for Alexa+ to fully launch in the UK as it did in the US – so around a year. In that time, we’ll see the service coming to a wide range of Alexa-enabled devices, including your Fire TV, and it’ll soon be available in a web browser at alexa.co.uk.
