- Alexa+ can now buy discounted items for you
- Choose your item and set your price in advance
- It’s part of a wider Alexa+ shopping upgrade
Amazon has announced a number of new shopping features it’s rolling out to its Alexa+ AI assistant — including a new ability to automatically buy products you’re looking for when they hit a lower price, which sounds like it might not be so good for your bank balance.
This was actually announced back in February, but is now rolling out to early testers in the US and Canada, according to The Verge. It’s also part of a new Shopping Essentials interface upgrade that will appear first on the Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21 screens.
How it works: You tell the bot about an item you want to buy and a price limit you need to be aware of. You then have the option to authorize Alexa+ to automatically purchase that product when it hits that price, using your default purchase and delivery information.
It’s reassuring to see some degree of control there – but I can imagine queuing up for a series of deals I’d like to take advantage of, forgetting about them, and then being met with a barrage of buy notifications when the next sales season rolls around.
Alexa+ will also be able to keep an eye on your current shopping cart and wish lists for potential deal opportunities, and the same automatic purchase feature can be found in the Rufus AI assistant that lives on Amazon’s website and in Amazon’s mobile apps.
As for the broader Shopping Essentials upgrade, it brings together all your important Amazon data in one place for ease and convenience: current orders, items out for delivery, products on your shopping lists that you plan to buy, and so on.
Other additions coming to Alexa+ are personalized gift suggestions—so you describe who you’re shopping for to the AI and it picks out some ideas—and the ability to add new items to a last-minute delivery right before it leaves the Amazon warehouse.
Alexa+ remains in beta testing and is still invite-only, with users in the US and Canada able to request access: here’s how. You’ll also need one of the newer smart displays – Echo Show 8, Echo Show 10, Echo Show 15 or Echo Show 21.
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