However experts have suggested consumers may struggle to get past their limited expectations of Amazon devices.
"Smart speakers are found in one in four UK homes, yet many users treat them as nothing more than expensive kitchen timers," said Ed Freed from marketing agency Rapp UK.
"Ultimately, the most logical place for a truly personal AI assistant is on your phone, not on your countertop."
Amazon's head of devices and services Panos Panay said Alexa+ would remember information, meaning if you tell it you're a gluten intolerant vegan, for example, future recipes it suggested would bear this in mind.
And he promised there would be "no more Alexa speak" - meaning users will be able to speak to it more conversationally than previously possible.
These are new features that Dr Richard Whittle of University of Salford's Business School explained were "long overdue".
"Amazon is hoping its upgraded Alexa will challenge Copilot, Google Assistant and Siri, all of whom use new LLM (large language model) technology," he said.
"When users can now chat naturally to their AI assistants, Alexa's once leading voice interaction seems narrow and rigid."
His colleague Dr Gordon Fletcher, associate dean of research and innovation, agreed.
"Technology changes more rapidly now, competing AI models get updated and everyone else scrambles to respond, Grok last week, Claude this week," he said.
"Alexa and the Echo hardware have increasingly seemed like an ageing relic, slow to shift and always behind the curve."