Amazon makes its AI-powered Alexa+ free on Fire TV, no Prime required
TechCrunch Sarah Perez ● Covered by 2 sources
Amazon is putting Alexa+ on Fire TV for free in the U.S. No Prime needed now, and the TV gets AI search, recommendations, and smart-home controls.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Sarah Perez — read the original for the full story.
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Amazon is making Alexa+ a default part of Fire TV in the U.S., and it’s dropping the paywall with it. On Wednesday, the company said the AI assistant will roll out for free to all compatible Fire TV devices, even if the customer doesn’t subscribe to Prime.
That matters because Alexa+ had been a paid add-on for people outside Amazon’s subscription world. It cost $19.99 a month, and it was first limited to the newer Fire TV devices Amazon introduced last fall. Now, Amazon says the upgrade will happen automatically. No app download. No separate sign-up.
The list of supported hardware is broad: current-generation Fire TV Sticks, the Fire TV Cube, Amazon Ember smart TVs, and other televisions with Alexa+ built in, including models from Hisense and Panasonic. The pitch is familiar but more ambitious than old voice search. Users can ask for “a top-rated thriller” or “a historical drama with a strong female lead,” and Alexa+ is supposed to answer with suggestions based on theme, age, popularity, and similar signals.
Amazon is also pushing the assistant beyond entertainment. It can handle smart-home control, including showing Ring camera feeds on the TV. And the move fits a wider industry pattern: Google has already pushed Gemini into Google TV, replacing basic search with conversational AI, while Roku upgraded its voice assistant last year. Amazon says Alexa+ users now have nearly twice as many conversations on Fire TV as they did with the original Alexa. That’s the company’s proof that people want this. Or at least that they’re talking to the television a lot more.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the usual tech-company trick: call it an upgrade, remove the opt-out, and then point to usage metrics as if consent were a spreadsheet. Amazon is betting that AI feels inevitable on the TV, and maybe it does. But the more these assistants get bundled into the box, the more the “choice” part of consumer tech starts to look decorative.
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