August 4, 2025, 11:11 am | Read time: 4 minutes
Amazon’s voice assistant is present in numerous households worldwide, assisting with various functions in daily life. Since February, there’s been a new version with AI support, Alexa+. However, the company has now announced that Alexa might soon include advertising.
Alexa Could Include Ads in Conversations
According to a report by “TechCrunch,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy suggested this possibility during a quarterly report. He mentioned that customers are already “excited” about the products with Alexa+. They complete many purchases with its help.
Over time, opportunities could arise to incorporate advertising into direct conversations with Alexa. The focus will be on so-called “multi-step conversations,” which are expected to increase in number. With additional advertising, the aim is to help consumers discover new products while boosting revenue.
So far, Alexa users receive limited advertising, with the type of ad depending on the device. Either a visual ad appears on the display, or a spot plays between songs over the speaker. Soon, Alexa might integrate ads as part of an ongoing conversation.
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The plan comes against the backdrop of immense capital expenditures for developing internal AI chips and data centers. In the second quarter of 2025, Amazon’s investments rose to $31.4 billion—90 percent more than the same period in 2024. A significant portion goes into AI. At the same time, advertising revenue increased by 22 percent.
Amazon aims to keep up with the times. Competitors like Google and OpenAI are also exploring or testing AI-supported advertising. Whether Amazon can keep pace remains to be seen. Much depends on the success of Alexa+. Currently, the new AI version is only available in the U.S., but other markets will follow soon. Prime subscribers can use it at no extra cost, while others will have to pay $20 monthly. Jassy also mentioned the possibility of a future ad-free subscription.
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However, progress with Alexa+ is currently slow. Not enough households have upgraded, and there have been difficulties rolling out various features. For advertising within Alexa conversations to succeed, a large audience is needed.
Potential Privacy Risks
Advertisers should not jump too quickly on the AI advertising bandwagon. Like many other AI models, Alexa+ is not free from “hallucinations” and can sometimes make false statements. Amazon must ensure this doesn’t happen with advertising.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, conversations with Alexa+ should feel more natural and better, moving the upgrade more toward a chatbot, away from the previous pure voice assistant. However, people tend to reveal more to chatbots—sensitive information that can be directly collected and used for marketing purposes.
Given these current hurdles and the fact that the new AI version is not yet available worldwide, it may take some time before Alexa+ incorporates advertising into conversations.