The biggest surprise at Amazon’s press conference last week was the lack of hardware announcements. Traditionally, Amazon announces dozens of new gadgets at its events, but this time, Amazon spent 70 minutes talking about software. Specifically, Alexa Plus, its new generative AI-powered Alexa voice assistant. And that was exactly the right move.

Amazon’s long-awaited update to its assistant is almost here. About 18 months after the company first previewed the “next-gen Alexa” built with generative AI, it unveiled Alexa+, and early access will be available starting in March.

Amazon seems to finally be getting on the AI train, so to speak, as it launched the new Alexa Plus this week. According to the company, this newly supercharged AI powered assistant is more intuitive, understanding the user's needs more effortlessly than the previous model.