Amazon just unveiled its new “Alexa+” upgrade for its long-running voice assistant which brings AI upgrades and a $20 price tag, but you don’t have to pay that if you have Prime, which is a much bigger, yet cheaper service.
Amazon Prime has been one of the best values on the web for a long time now, offering faster shipping speeds, a video streaming library, free cloud gaming options, and a host of other perks and services for a flat yearly or monthly fee. Many of those services are available on their own at a lower cost, but it’s hard to argue the value you get from having the larger subscription.
But Amazon’s latest addition to Prime is a head-scratcher.
“Alexa+” is a new AI upgrade to Amazon’s voice assistant which delivers new features and capabilities. Some of the promises are pretty compelling, and Amazon is rolling out the upgrade for free for its Prime subscribers.
If you’re not a Prime subscriber, though, Amazon Alexa+ is a $19.99/month upgrade. That’s confusing, as Amazon Prime, despite having a huge number of other perks, is only $14.99/month, and even less if you pay yearly.
Amazon says:
Alexa+ costs $19.99 per month, but is free for all Prime members. Alexa+ will start rolling out in the U.S. in the next few weeks, and subsequently in waves in the coming months…
The math ain’t mathing.
The reason for this disparity is reasonably obvious. $20 per month is, give or take, the going industry standard for AI subscriptions. ChatGPT Plus is $20/month. Gemini Advanced is also $19.99/month (with 2TB of Google One storage on top). With Amazon’s plans for a website and mobile apps for Alexa+, it makes some sense to match those prices.
However, this disparity does strongly suggest that Amazon may end up raising Prime prices, which currently costs $139/year on an annual plan. Earlier this year, Amazon upped the price on its Music Unlimited service.
More on Amazon:
- Amazon Appstore for Android is shutting down in August
- Amazon isn’t giving up on Android for the Fire TV just yet
- Amazon will shut down Freevee, months after saying it wouldn’t shut down Freevee
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