Following years of development, Amazon's next-generation digital assistant is ready for public use. Panos Panay, Amazon's senior vice president of devices and services, demoed Alexa+ at the company's 2025 devices event.The model powering Alexa+ can detect tone and mood and respond accordingly, with a completely new voice one that sounds more natural. Moreover, it's only necessary to say "Alexa" once to wake the assistant. It will then follow the conversation. Panay said Alexa+ has contextual awareness, with the ability to "remember" earlier parts of a conversation. "There's no more Alexa speak" with Alexa+, Panay said. "You can have almost any conversation that intimidation factor of AI is gone."In one of the more impressive demos Amazon showed off, Panay asked Alexa+ to play a song without actually naming it properly. "What's the song Bradley Cooper sings.. it's like a duet?" Alexa+ correctly answered "Shallow," said he sang it with Lady Gaga in A Star is Born.Panay then asked Alexa to "move" the music to the "right side of the room," and the assistant properly identified the correct speaker and played the music there. According to Panay, it will even understand requests like "play the music everywhere but don't wake the baby." In that case, Alexa+ will be able to reason that it shouldn't cast the music to the nursery.Developing...This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/alexa-is-a-smarter-more-conversational-ai-version-of-amazons-digital-assistant-154349563.html?src=rss