If Alexa’s in your home, you might’ve been one of many users this month who were suddenly moved from the original Alexa to the new AI-powered Alexa+ voice assistant.
Amazon announced in early January during CES that it’d be rolling out the new assistant to all Alexa+ Early Access customers, and that turns out to also include all Prime members, even if you weren’t on the Early Access list.
Alexa+ is still in Early Access, as it has been since it launched in spring last year, meaning that the assistant isn’t fully complete yet, nor is it requiring you to pay the $20 monthly fee if you don’t have Prime. However, the waiting list is done, and it’s become fully available. Even if you didn’t want it, if you have Prime, Alexa+ and its new voice will start showing up on your device.
Here’s what’s going on and how you can switch back to the original Alexa voice—which is still not quite the same as it once was.
Amazon’s Forward Push
Alexa+ is Amazon’s new generation of the Alexa voice assistant, powered by artificial intelligence, promising more conversational responses, better understanding of complex requests, and serving more as a chatbot you can talk to rather than a digital butler you command.
If you have a display device like an Echo Show, it also turns the on-screen conversation into a text chat, akin to the ChatGPT app. Perhaps most noticeably, Alexa+ has a new default voice that people have described as a “sassy teen,” though you can technically switch back to the old voice. (More on that below.)
Part of the news announced at CES was that Alexa+ will now also be widely available on Alexa.com if you want Alexa’s help while you’re using your browser. This is more of a move to compete with ChatGPT than it is something to help your day-to-day use of Alexa, but I guess it’s nice if you’re looking for a single AI service to use across smart home devices, apps, and the browser. Also, this cross-platform Alexa access is free if you have Prime, versus paying an additional fee for something like ChatGPT, but Amazon’s assistant is has yet to reach its full intended form and is not as capable as the competition right now.
Amazon says users were notified via email, in the Alexa app, and on Echo and Echo Show devices about upgrading from the basic Alexa to the new Alexa+. One WIRED staffer kept declining the upgrade and found it had forcibly pushed to her Echo Dot one morning, greeting her with a completely different voice, which she found intolerable.
“Alexa+ is significantly more capable than the original Alexa, so we’re working to make it available to as many customers as possible,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “We notified customers of the upcoming update, including how to return to the original version.”
Amazon says it’s only upgrading Prime members with supported devices to Alexa+ Early Access in this new push. Alexa+ is currently free, and Prime members will continue to get it for free when it launches into the first full version, but it will cost $20 a month once it officially launches for non-Prime members. The list of supported devices is also generous, including the first generations of the Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Spot, and even Echo Plus. There’s a long list of Fire TV and Fire tablet devices that are also compatible, so depending on how many Amazon-powered devices you own and if you’re a Prime member, you could be seeing Alexa+ in several places.
How to Switch Back to Original Alexa
If you didn’t want to upgrade or don’t like the experience, it’s easy to switch back. Just tell your Alexa device, “Alexa, exit Alexa Plus,” and it’ll switch back to the original Alexa voice and experience. This works on supported Echo devices. You’ll stop seeing the chatbot-like conversation style, and the assistant’s responses will be less conversational.
Other than that, you won’t really lose your core capabilities. Personally, I haven’t found that I needed to change how I ask questions between the two versions of the voice assistant. The onscreen and voice experience reverted to something very similar (if not slightly updated, though I am using the newest Echo Show 11 to test it) to what I remember Alexa being like before I switched to Alexa+. Amazon will also warn you that some features will have to be changed in the Alexa app if you revert to the older experience, but doesn’t specify what these are, nor does it make those settings easy to find.
If you’re not a Prime member and didn’t get the automated push to Alexa+, you should be able to still toggle it pretty easily in the app, or even on your device by asking to switch to Alexa+. There’s no longer a sign-up page like there used to be, since there’s no waitlist. To find details about your Alexa+ access and to manage the controls, look under Memberships & Subscriptions in your Amazon account.
Alexa Versus Alexa+
Even if you request to switch back to the old Alexa, is it really the old Alexa? While it is the same voice, Feminine 2 (or “Relaxed”), our team—along with other users on Reddit—have noticed some of the inflections in the voice have changed, making it sound different from the way it used to. You can also use Feminine 2 while in Alexa+, so the voice itself has likely been updated to keep up with the more conversational style that Alexa+ promises.
Some people also hate the new default voice, Feminine 1, which the Alexa app describes as “upbeat,” but others call the “teenage girl” voice. (Or as my editor, parent to a teen, calls it, the “sassy teenager” voice). New Alexa does sound much more youthful, and has a cadence that sounds almost sarcastic. In all, Alexa+ offers four feminine and four masculine voices, each of which is described in the app with a single adjective like “Inviting” or “Warm.”
You can tell Alexa to just switch to the old voice and it will change it to Feminine 2 while staying in Alexa+. (A Reddit user said this request didn’t work for them, but I was able to request it and see an instant change as of January 22.)
When you revert to the original Alexa—the whole experience, not just the voice—on a display device, you’ll also stop seeing the text chats displayed, conversation style, onscreen. And while both versions of Alexa show ads, only Alexa+ shows me ads while I’m actively asking questions. Old Alexa keeps its ads to its rotating slideshow (and sometimes sneaks in a promo during my weather report).
I’ve actually liked switching back because Alexa+ would only show me part of my local weather report, since it’s confined to the text chat. Imagine a slideshow of pictures in a chat you can’t click or fully open; that’s what the weather report becomes in the Alexa+ experience. The old Alexa fills the entire screen with the weather report, and slowly shows me multiple pages of hourly reports and weekly reports.
We’ll have to see if this push by Amazon helps bring wider Alexa+ adoption. Amazon has no update at this time about when the completed, fully baked version of Alexa+ is arriving for users. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen until next year, as it’s taken nearly a year for Alexa+ Early Access to become available to everyone, let alone a fully updated assistant.
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