The many pluses and minuses of Alexa Plus

Alexa Plus now leads in smart-home control, but Amazon's bid to make it a general personal AI agent remains unproven a year post-launch.

• Smart home gains, personal assistant lags: After a year testing Alexa Plus, Jen Tuohy says voice routines, light control, and Ring integration have improved markedly since February launch, but agentic tasks like Uber Eats orders or trip booking still frequently fail.
• Promised integrations undelivered: Amazon pledged Expedia and other third-party API integrations at launch that still haven't materialized; the Alexa shopping list can't push orders to non-Amazon grocers like Harris Teeter.

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