Marketplace Briefing: Amazon says customers make three times more purchases on Alexa+ than its predecessor
This is the latest installment of the Marketplace Briefing, a weekly Modern Retail+ column about the ever-changing e-commerce marketplace landscape. More from the series →
Amazon says its generative AI push is already changing how people interact with its voice assistant, with customers now completing three times as many purchases through its newly released Alexa+ compared to the classic version.
It’s an early signal that Alexa’s generative AI upgrade could reshape how people shop through voice interfaces. Unlike the classic version, which primarily handled single commands like playing music or checking the weather, Alexa+ is designed to handle more complex, conversational requests, complete multi-step tasks, and take actions such as building shopping lists, placing orders or booking reservations.
For Amazon, Alexa+ is part of its effort to update its voice assistant with generative AI capabilities and expand how customers interact with Prime benefits like shopping, entertainment and grocery ordering. Amazon executives see Alexa+ not as a standalone feature but as a layer that ties together different Prime benefits through a single AI interface.
“Alexa is designed to be there with you all the time. It’s ambient, it’s continuous, and it’s built for the whole household, not just one person,” Moz Thomas, director of worldwide Amazon Prime benefits, pricing and constructs, said in an interview.
Amazon made Alexa+ widely available to U.S. customers in early February, expanding availability beyond the early-access program it launched in 2025 as the company works to modernize its decade-old voice assistant with generative AI capabilities. In January, Amazon also introduced a standalone Alexa+ website where users can interact directly with the AI assistant, putting it in more direct competition with other chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Previously, Alexa+ was primarily available through the Alexa app and select Echo devices. The update is also intended to make Alexa a more central interface for Prime perks and services.
Thomas said Alexa+ is designed to support a wide range of shopping occasions, from routine grocery replenishment to more exploratory purchases, while also helping coordinate activity across households. For example, he told Modern Retail he used Alexa+ to help brainstorm a birthday gift for his son, eventually settling on an electric guitar and asking the assistant to automatically purchase it if it fell below a certain price. Amazon is particularly focused on how AI can simplify everyday tasks such as managing shared shopping lists or discovering products through natural conversation rather than traditional search.
Thomas spoke with Modern Retail about what adoption looks like one month after the U.S. rollout, how Alexa+ is changing shopping behavior and why Amazon believes conversational AI could become the primary way customers interact with Prime. This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Amazon announced it was making Alexa+ available to everyone in the U.S. in early February. What does adoption look like one month later?
“Tens of millions of members are already using it, and that’s growing every single week. Customers are talking to Alexa more and more every week, where typically you would see a plateau after an initial honeymoon phase. But in this case, interactions are continuing to grow, and customers are talking to Alexa two times more than previously.
Whenever you’ve got a new technology, people try it, and then they’re like, ‘Alright, done.’ The novelty is kind of over. That tends to happen when the thing isn’t useful or able to actually get something done for you. What we’re seeing on Alexa is, because it’s able to actually do things for you, whether it’s play music, find the right content to watch, we see the engagement actually deepen as people use it, rather than plateau off.”
How is Alexa+ changing shopping behavior specifically?
“We’ve moved from a world of search and click to conversational commerce. The numbers back this up. Customers are completing three times more purchases on Alexa+ than they were with the classic version of Alexa.”
More broadly, Amazon has been putting a big focus on online grocery orders and delivery. How is Alexa+ playing into the way people shop for groceries?
“At Amazon, we split grocery trips into three different types of missions. One is when you need something right away. The second is when you need a top‑up. And then there’s full‑basket grocery shopping, when you need to do the weekly full restock of everything. Alexa+ is designed to handle all three, whether that means building a shared household list over the course of the week, pulling in recipes and ingredient suggestions, or letting people ask, “What can I get in 30 minutes?” and placing a fast delivery order.
In my own household, I’ll look in the fridge and realize I’ve got random ingredients I need to use up. Last time it was broccoli and beef, so I asked Alexa, ‘Can you give me some recipes for these things?’ It came back with a couple of great options. It knows that I’m trying to be more keto‑friendly, so it gives me those types of recipes, and it can even flag ingredients it thinks I still have from my last shopping order. We’re finding that those types of tips are making it more engaging for customers, and customers are actually using Alexa+ for recipes five times more than they did with the classic version of Alexa.”
Are you seeing differences in engagement between Prime members who use Alexa+ and those who don’t?
“People who use Alexa+ use it for multiple benefits. Part of the reason for that is it makes each benefit a richer, deeper experience. Number one is music — we see much higher engagement on the music side. Shopping has been growing over time, and especially with this release, we’re seeing a big step jump, as I mentioned.
What makes Alexa+ different from other benefits is it’s not just another benefit sitting in the lineup. It’s the horizontal glue that connects everything together in the experience, because it’s a user interface that people come to discover and access all of the other benefits, but it’s also embedded in all of the other benefits. So when you think about AI in the shopping app, or AI in the video app, the music app, etc., it’s embedded in there when you need it. It really elevates the experience across every Prime benefit.”
How does Alexa+ usage compare across channels, including Echo devices, mobile app and browser? Where are you seeing the strongest traction?
“I can’t share where we are seeing the strongest traction, but I can share that, for some, Alexa-enabled devices may have felt like something you only get if you have a smart home. The reality is Alexa can help with such a wide range of things, and now, many of those customers are experiencing Alexa on Alexa.com. More and more customers are trying Alexa.com each week, and once they try it, they’re using it more frequently. The majority of customers are having rich conversations about things like sharing opinions, making personal decisions, brainstorming, generating content and more. With Echo devices, we see some of this, too, but there are also more quick, utilitarian engagements like recipe substitutions, ordering household essentials and playing music.”
Do you envision a future where it’s central to how people interact with Prime?
“Alexa+ will eventually go worldwide. I would expect, eventually, to have 100% of active Prime members using Alexa+ in some capacity — either directly on an Echo device or embedded as part of the experiences they use. You shouldn’t think about Alexa+ as just being on an Echo device. Wherever you go, whether you’re shopping, looking at photos, watching videos, listening to music or gaming, all of those are going to have Alexa+ embedded in them.”
What I’m reading
- Amazon plans to sharply reduce the number of package shipments handled by the U.S. Postal Service by at least two-thirds before its current contract expires in October, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- Amazon is introducing one-hour and three-hour deliveries in parts of the U.S.
- Amazon is moving up its annual Prime Day sale to June from July, per Bloomberg.