Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa, or simply Alexa, is a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances and at Alexa.com.
Alexa was largely developed from the British computer scientist William Tunstall-Pedoe's Evi system and a Polish speech synthesizer named Ivona, acquired by Amazon in 2012 and 2013. From 2023 to 2025, Amazon shifted to an in-house large language model named Nova to be used in a new generation of Alexa, called Alexa+, that occasionally used Anthropic's Claude model.
Alexa was first used in the Amazon Echo smart speaker and the Amazon Echo Dot, Echo Studio and Amazon Tap speakers developed by Amazon Lab126. It is capable of natural language processing for tasks such as voice interaction, music playback, creating to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, providing weather, traffic, sports, other real-time information and news. Alexa can also control several smart devices as a home automation system. Alexa's capabilities may be extended by installing "skills" such as weather programs and audio features. It performs these tasks using automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, and other forms of weak AI.
Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake-word, such as Alexa or Amazon; other devices require the user to click a button to activate Alexa's listening mode, although, some phones also allow a user to say a command, such as "Alexa, or Alexa go to bed" or "Alexa wake"., more than 10,000 Amazon employees worked on Alexa and related products. In January 2019, Amazon's devices team announced that they had sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices.
History
In 2012, Amazon acquired the British company, Evi, founded in 2005 by William Tunstall-Pedoe. Alexa was also developed out of a predecessor named Ivona which was invented in Poland, inspired by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and bought by Amazon in 2013. Evi provided the question-to-answer system, and Ivona provided the text-to-speech model. On November 6, 2014, Amazon announced Alexa alongside the Echo. Amazon developers chose the name Alexa because it has a hard consonant with the X, which helps it be recognized with higher precision. They have said the name is reminiscent of the Library of Alexandria, which was also used by Amazon Alexa Internet for the same reason. In June 2015, Amazon announced the Alexa Fund, a program that would invest in companies making voice control skills and technologies. The 200 million fund has invested in companies including Jargon, Ecobee, Orange Chef, Scout Alarm, Garageio, Toymail, MARA, and Mojio. In 2016, the [|Alexa Prize] was announced to further advance the technology.In January 2017, the first Alexa Conference took place in Nashville, Tennessee, an independent gathering of the worldwide community of Alexa developers and enthusiasts. Follow up conferences went under the name Project Voice and featured keynote speakers such as Amazon's Head of Education for Alexa, Paul Cutsinger. At the Amazon Web Services Re: Invent conference in Las Vegas, Amazon announced Alexa for Business and the ability for app developers to have paid add-ons to their skills. In May 2018, Amazon announced it would include Alexa in 35,000 new homes built by Lennar.
In November 2018, Amazon opened its first Alexa-themed pop-up shop inside of Toronto's Eaton Centre, showcasing the use of home automation products with Amazon's smart speakers. Amazon also sells Alexa devices at Amazon Books and Whole Foods Market locations, in addition to mall-based pop-ups throughout the United States. In December 2018, Alexa was built into the Anki Vector and was the first major update for the Anki Vector, although Vector was released in August 2018, it is the only home robot with advanced technology. As of 2018, interaction and communication with Alexa were available only in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Hindi. In Canada, Alexa is available in English and French.
In October 2019, Amazon announced the expansion of Alexa to Brazil, in Portuguese, together with Bose, Intelbras, and LG. In November 2019, Amazon introduced Echo Studio, a Dolby Atmos-compatible surround sound Alexa speaker. Hoped-for revenue never materialized from people using voice ordering for Amazon products or services from partners such as Domino's Pizza and Uber. Alexa does not play audio ads, and display ads were relatively unsuccessful. In 2019 an all-hands crisis meeting was called to address the issue, and a hiring freeze was instated. In 2022, with the division losing several billion dollars per quarter, the company started laying off Alexa employees en masse. Echo Show devices began serving hidable ads for Alexa skills and other products in December 2022, followed by ads promoting shopping for specific products on Amazon in November 2023. Also in November 2023, Amazon directed Alexa employees to train a large language model codenamed "Olympus". In December 2024, Amazon announced its own set of AI models under the Nova brand. In February 2025, Amazon introduced Alexa+, the latest version of their voice assistant, which is powered by generative AI. Alexa+ was announced to be free for all Prime members. On the same day Alexa+ was announced, Anthropic announced that Claude models were part of Alexa+. In January 2026, Amazon expanded Alexa+ to the web with the launch of Alexa.com, allowing users to interact with the assistant through a browser in addition to voice and mobile platforms. The move positioned Alexa+ in more direct competition with web-based AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
Applications
A companion application is available for selected devices in the Apple Appstore, the Amazon Appstore. and by Google Play. The applications can be used to install skills, control music, manage alarms, and shopping lists. It also allows users to review the recognized text on the app screen and to send feedback to Amazon concerning whether the recognition was good or bad.Functions
Alexa can perform a number of preset functions out-of-the-box such as set timers, share the current weather, create lists, access Wikipedia articles, and many more things. Users say a designated "wake word" to alert an Alexa-enabled device of an ensuing function command. Alexa listens for the command and performs the appropriate function, or skill, to answer a question or command. When questions are asked, Alexa converts sound waves into text which allows it to gather information from various sources. Behind the scenes, the data gathered is then sometimes passed to a variety of suppliers including WolframAlpha, iMDB, AccuWeather, Yelp, Wikipedia, Mediawiki, and others, in order to generate suitable and accurate answers.Alexa-supported devices can stream music from the owner's Amazon Music accounts and have built-in support for Pandora and Spotify accounts. Alexa can play music from streaming services such as Apple Music and Google Play Music from a phone or tablet. In addition to performing pre-set functions, Alexa can also perform additional functions through third-party skills that users can enable. Some of the most popular Alexa skills in 2018 included "Question of the Day" and "National Geographic Geo Quiz" for trivia; "TuneIn Live" to listen to live sporting events and news stations; "Big Sky" for hyper-local weather updates; "Sleep and Relaxation Sounds" for listening to calming sounds; "Sesame Street" for children's entertainment; and "Fitbit" for Fitbit users who want to check in on their health stats. In 2019, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Zigbee Alliance announced a partnership to make their smart home products work together.
Amazon is enhancing Alexa with generative AI features using its Titan model, aiming to compete with AI like ChatGPT. The upgrade will be offered as a separate subscription service, potentially costing between $10 and $20 per month. There is no confirmed launch date yet. There are also humour related voice commands. One example is if you ask "Alexa, do you know GLaDOS?", Alexa will reply with "We don't really talk after what happened". This is a nod to the Portal video game franchise.