E-commerce giant Amazon has announced a major expansion of its AI-based assistant Alexa+, adding several third-party integrations. The assistant can now perform real-world tasks such as booking travel tickets or reservations, hiring services, ordering food, and managing payments – all through natural language commands.
The first wave of partners includes Expedia (travel planning and bookings), Yelp (local business information), Angi (home repairs and professional services) and Square (digital payments).
Why Alexa+ finally feels useful
So instead of juggling multiple apps to do all of these things, users can simply ask Alexa+ to do the work for them. For example, you can ask the digital assistant, “Find a well-rated restaurant or café near me and reserve a table for two,” and the assistant should do the rest.
Voice assistants face a simple problem: you can talk to them as much as you want, but they can only do so many tasks. However, Amazon’s new approach aims to address this problem by relying heavily on conversational AI and deeper integration with dedicated services.
Conversational Alexa+ conveys relevant context, allows users to ask follow-up questions, and performs multi-step tasks, marking a significant shift from command-based voice interactions to a personal, concierge-like experience. In other words: Amazon positions Alexa+ as a useful tool.
If you’ve ever abandoned a voice request because it was quicker to pick up your phone and complete the task yourself, Alexa+ should save you time by combining search, comparison, booking and payment into a single voice-based conversation.
In the near future, Amazon is expected to announce collaborations with additional partners and expand Alexa+ into areas such as healthcare, subscriptions and other recurring services that require some level of technical or non-technical support. Additionally, Alexa+ can act on your behalf and handle the everyday tasks that take up a lot of time.
