Amazon is bringing its new AI-powered conversational assistant Alexa+ to the UK. The UK is the first country outside of North America to introduce AI assistants.
The company is currently letting users in the UK try Alexa+ for free through its early access program. Users who purchase a new Amazon Echo will receive an invitation to the early access program, and the company says it plans to make Alexa+ available to “hundreds of thousands” of customers in the coming weeks.
Once the early access program ends, Prime subscribers will be able to use Alexa+ for free, while non-Prime users will have to pay £19.99 per month. The company has not announced when the early access program will end.
Alexa+ works with Amazon’s new Echo devices, Fire TV, and the Alexa app to convey conversation context from one device to another. The company plans to extend Alexa+ support to browsers as well.
Amazon says Alexa+ is customized for UK customers, and the assistant can understand local conditions and commonly used phrases.
“A local team, including engineers, linguists, and speech scientists at Amazon’s tech hub in Cambridge, UK, uses a variety of technologies, including reinforcement learning, accent-neutral speech representation, and regional embedding, to help Alexa+ truly understand UK customers,” the company said in a blog post.
Amazon noted that users can ask services like OpenTable, JustEat, and Treatwell for suggestions. You can also get news from sources such as The Independent, The Guardian, Press Association and Future Publishing.
tech crunch event
San Francisco, California
|
October 13-15, 2026
Amazon first announced Alexa+ in February 2025, but its rollout has been slow. The company just gave one million people in the US access to the new assistant by June, and last month it finally made Alexa+ available to all US-based users. The company had also launched early access programs in Canada and Mexico.
Last month, the company introduced a new “personality” option to Alexa+ that lets users customize the tone of their responses. Earlier this month, Amazon rolled out an adults-only “Sassy” mode, but said the Assistant would not support NSFW content.
