Amazon's Alexa+ now available in India: How to get access
What's the story
Amazon has launched Alexa+, its latest generative AI-powered personal assistant, in India. The new version is designed to be more conversational, smarter, and deeply personalized for Indian users. It supports English, Hindi, and Hinglish languages with plans to add more Indian languages soon. The company said the move is part of its effort to create a world-class personal assistant that caters to the diverse needs of Indian households.
User experience
For multi-generational, multilingual households
Teena Sidana, Country Manager for Alexa at Amazon India, said that Indian households are multi-generational and multilingual.
She emphasized that Alexa+ was designed to cater to this complexity by understanding intent and adapting to household preferences.
The new assistant lets each family member interact in a way that feels most natural for them.
This is part of Amazon's vision of simplifying everyday life for hundreds of millions of people who speak, shop, and live differently from one another.
Availability
Availability and pricing
Alexa+ is available for free during the Early Access period on eligible Echo smart speakers and displays, Fire TV devices, and the Alexa mobile app.
Users can check their eligibility by visiting amazon.in/alexaplus or get immediate access by purchasing a new eligible Echo or Fire TV device.
After the Early Access period ends, Alexa+ will remain free for Prime plan members while other customers can access it through a standalone subscription priced at ₹2,000/month or through their Prime plan.
Features
New features and capabilities
Alexa+ is designed to understand natural conversation instead of fixed voice commands.
It supports English, Hindi, and Hinglish languages, allowing users to change topics during a conversation and continue talking without repeating the "Alexa" wake word.
The assistant can also handle mixed-language conversations, making it ideal for India's multilingual environment.
Task management
Everyday tasks the new assistant can help with
Alexa+ can perform a range of everyday tasks such as controlling smart-home devices, creating routines, getting personalized meal suggestions, discovering music and entertainment, building shopping lists, and tracking Amazon.in deliveries.
It can also combine multiple actions in a single request. For example, you could ask it to change the lights, close the curtains, and start Fire TV as part of a movie-time routine.
Future plans
Third-party services coming to Alexa+
Amazon plans to bring more third-party services to Alexa+.
Soon, EazyDiner, Swiggy, District by Zomato, Home Triangle, MakeMyTrip, and TripAdvisor will be available for restaurant reservations, food delivery, events, travel, and home services.
The assistant can also create smart home routines through voice commands and control connected devices from brands including Atomberg, Qubo, Dreame, and Wipro.
Personalization
Technology behind Alexa+
Alexa+ uses voice and visual identification to recognize individual members of a household and tailor its responses.
This includes remembering preferences such as dietary restrictions for recipe suggestions.
It can also learn entertainment preferences and use household routines to provide reminders or automate tasks.
The technology has been developed by teams in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai with speech-recognition technology designed for Indian home environments and language models capable of handling code-mixed conversations.