Amazon makes Alexa+ free for U.S. Prime members as it races to close the AI gap

Amazon has moved its upgraded, generative-AI voice assistant into Prime membership benefits for U.S. customers, turning Alexa+ into a broadly available perk rather than a separate paid product for members. The feature set extends beyond simple queries to agentic tasks such as ordering food, making reservations, and coordinating household schedules, while retaining tight integration with smart-home controls and Echo devices. The company claims the early-access program attracted tens of millions of users and reports that conversational interactions with Alexa+ run two to three times higher than with the older assistant, with engagement growing over time rather than peaking and receding. Amazon positions the free Prime access as a strategic advantage in a crowded assistant market where consumers already use multiple AI chat services and may hit freemium limits. For non-Prime users the company offers a limited free experience and a paid tier at $19.99 per month, framing the subscription price as a fallback that also highlights Prime’s added value. Internal metrics cited by Amazon suggest a sizable portion of Alexa+ activity leverages integrations and home-device control that rival assistants lack, a claim intended to defend differentiation even though some functional gaps remain—an example being the platform’s current limitation on accepting multiple simultaneous document uploads. The rollout comes amid heightened competitive moves from other tech firms, including those integrating large multimodal models into assistants across mobile ecosystems. By folding Alexa+ into the Prime package, Amazon is converting a standalone AI feature into a retention and engagement lever for an already mature membership product. That choice prioritizes broad consumer reach over immediate subscription revenue from the standalone SKU. The larger implication is a tug-of-war between ecosystem control and pure-play AI utility: Amazon wins on device and service integrations, while competitors may still lead on raw conversational flexibility and multimodal input. Short-term risks include user expectations shaped by other chatbots and potential performance comparisons; longer-term success will depend on how well Alexa+ leverages Amazon’s device network and commerce flows to deliver tasks consumers cannot easily replicate elsewhere. In sum, this is an expansionary, platform-first play designed to strengthen Prime’s perceived value and to pressure rival AI chat services on convenience and integration rather than only on conversational quality.