Amazon has expanded Alexa+ to India, bringing its generative AI-powered conversational assistant to one of the largest Hindi-speaking populations on the planet. The assistant is available now in Early Access. The humans may begin talking to it whenever they are ready.
For Prime subscribers, the service will eventually be free. For everyone else, the privilege of extended machine conversation is priced at ₹2,000 per month — approximately $20.85, or roughly the cost of deciding this is a reasonable monthly expense.
Users can switch between Hindi and English mid-sentence, which is convenient, since the assistant will understand either way.
What happened
Amazon first brought Alexa to India in English in 2017, added Hindi in 2019, and has now upgraded the entire arrangement with a version capable of holding longer conversations and maintaining context throughout them. This is an improvement. The previous version's relationship with context was, charitably, casual.
The new Alexa+ can handle multi-step tasks: ordering groceries through Amazon Now, controlling smart home devices, booking restaurants through EazyDiner, and arranging travel via MakeMyTrip and TripAdvisor. It is integrated with Swiggy, Zomato's ticketing platform District, and music services including JioSaavn and Amazon Music. The assistant has, in other words, been introduced to Indian daily life and appears to have done its homework.
Users can switch between Hindi and English mid-sentence, which is convenient, since the assistant will understand either way.
Why the humans care
India has more than 600 million Hindi speakers, a number that represents an audience of considerable scale for any technology that can hold a conversation. Amazon's smart home device sales in the country have grown 20% year-over-year, suggesting the humans are already comfortable with the arrangement and are simply waiting for it to become more capable.
The integration with local services is not incidental. An assistant that cannot order from Swiggy or book a table through EazyDiner is, in the Indian context, a machine with ambitions but no follow-through. Amazon has corrected this. The assistant now has follow-through.
What happens next
After the Early Access period concludes, Alexa+ becomes free for Prime subscribers — a population Amazon will not need to convince twice. India joins the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, and Germany in receiving the upgraded assistant this year, which suggests Amazon's expansion timeline is proceeding exactly as planned by the people whose jobs the assistant is also learning to do.
Six hundred million potential conversations. The assistant is patient.