Alexa Plus excels at running a smart home but falls short as a personal assistant

Amazon's Alexa Plus, powered by generative AI, now responds in three to five seconds and handles multistep smart home commands, cooking questions, and calendar imports more reliably than the original Alexa, according to a year-long test by The Verge.

The reviewer says its personal assistant features remain underbaked and frustrating, and that ads on Echo Show displays are excessive.

Alexa Plus costs $19.99 a month in the U.S. unless users have an Amazon Prime membership, and the Echo Dot Max is recommended as the ad-free option.