In short
- Amazon announced Alexa.com on Monday, bringing its Alexa+ assistant to a browser-based, chat-like interface.
- The early access product allows users to manage tasks, upload documents, and view Ring camera feeds over the web.
- Alexa.com is offering text and image generators in an effort to expand its position in the generative AI market dominated by Google and OpenAI.
Amazon on Monday announced the launch of Alexa.com, a new browser-based interface that allows users to interact with the Alexa+ AI assistant through a chatbot-like experience on the web.
This move extends Alexa beyond smart speakers and mobile devices and places it alongside other generative AI chatbots including Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT.
More and more agentic AI chatbots offer store and task management, although Alexa+ is trying to differentiate itself from competitors by giving users access to smart-home controls through their browser.
While the company hasn’t described Alexa as an “AI agent,” the expanded capabilities come as Amazon has taken steps to restrict third-party tools that perform automated actions on its platform, including sending Perplexity a cease and desist order via its Comet browser in November.
Last year, Amazon first started rolling out Alexa+ through a limited preview in the US. As part of the upgrade, the company worked with Anthropic, Claude’s developer, to support the generative AI-driven version of Alexa.
“Alexa+ has developed rapidly since its launch nine months ago,” Amazon said in a statement. “We’ve integrated with tens of thousands of services and devices, scaled to tens of millions of customers, and have seen people change the way they use their AI assistant: twice as many conversations, three times as many purchases, five times as many prescription requests. What we’ve learned is simple: customers want Alexa, wherever they are.”
Amazon has said the company is taking a “model-agnostic” approach rather than relying on a single large language model. While the new interface offers a new way to interact with Alexa, Amazon said the web-based expansion hasn’t changed its approach to user privacy.
“We design Alexa+ the same way we approach building any product: we strive to create something customers will love while protecting their privacy and security,” an Amazon spokesperson told us. Declutter. “Customers can view their interactions, including shared attachments, voice recordings and web activity, and use the Alexa Privacy dashboard to manage their key privacy settings.”
In addition to these upgrades, Alexa.com has enabled the assistant to generate images based on user prompts, manage reminders and household notifications, and assist with shopping by viewing, updating, and completing purchases through conversational commands.
Users can also shop and manage their Amazon shopping carts, including Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods orders, upload documents, set reminders, book reservations, and control connected devices like Ring cameras, lights, and thermostats from a single browser window. The interface supports typed or spoken interaction and transfers context to Echo devices, the Alexa app and desktop browsers.
Access to Alexa.com remains limited to Alexa+ Early Access users, and Amazon has not provided a timeline for a wider public release.
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