Alexa Plus now has more than a million users

By Tom MarshallJune 11, 20258 mins read

Amazon’s AI-powered upgrade to its voice assistant is now bringing smarter music discovery in over a million homes through Alexa+.

A gradual Alexa+ rollout

Amazon announced back in February that its voice assistant would receive an AI-powered upgrade, alongside an Early Access launch for March earlier this year. Now, Amazon’s Alexa Plus has reached over one million users, according to The Verge.

This is up from just the few hundreds of thousands who had access last month, and Reddit users are starting to reveal their experiences with the platform.

So I am actually liking Alexa+
byu/southernhope1 inalexa

So, why the hold up? Amazon is clearly erring on the side of caution. After delays and early setbacks, the company is keen to iron out all the wrinkles before it reaches the wider public. Amazon knows the scale of the public rollout which will see its AI Alexa “released to millions of people who depend on the technology across multiple devices”- and wants to get it right.

Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum told The Verge it’s now gradually reaching more users “at an increasing place” and is expected to be made “more broadly available over the summer”.

What Alexa Plus can (and can’t) do yet

When unveiled in February, the biggest upgrades to Alexa centred around a more conversational voice and smarter “agentic” features- meaning the voice assistant can complete tasks across apps on your behalf. For example, it could effortlessly interact with apps like Ticketmaster to remind you about concert tickets and upcoming events, and book them on your behalf.

For music lovers, Alexa Plus should also be able to memorise preferences, help you find songs based on vague descriptions, and integrate with Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and Amazon Music Unlimited.

That’s the goal, anyway.

At the moment, many of these music-forward features are live in Early Access, but Sveum revealed that several features aren’t. Features like “jump to your favorite scene on Fire TV; order groceries hands-free; order delivery through GrubHub; schedule your next spa visit; brainstorm the perfect gift idea; set personalized reminders and Routines for your family; create personalized music” and “Access Alexa+ on browser” are all still missing in action.

Amazon says around 90% of the promised tools are already available, including memory recall and a more conversational voice assistant.

“A lot of customers are telling us they love natural, free-flowing conversations with Alexa. It enables them to complete more complex requests like controlling multiple smart home devices at once, deep dive on music or trending topics.”
Eric Sveum, Amazon spokesperson

The other, currently unavailable features, are set to be made available in the coming weeks and months.

Will Amazon’s Suno partnership still arrive?

One feature of importance to the music industry is Alexa+’s planned integration with controversial AI music generator Suno. Announced earlier this year, the partnership would let users create full songs including vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation from simple requests.

This stirred up quite the debate given Suno’s tricky legal history over using copyrighted music to train its AI without permission. The company is battling lawsuits and has all but admitted to training its AI on copyrighted tracks, but is ploughing on with its platform while relying on a fair use claim.

This is made all the worse given Amazon’s public partnership with Universal which is aimed at tackling unlawful AI-generated content. Suno is currently rumoured to be discussing licensing measures with major labels which could make its actions lawful. Until a licensing resolution is reached, Amazon may opt to keep this “personalized music” feature on hold.