PCWorld highlights Alexa's'Auto Buy' feature as a powerful tool for securing Prime Day deals automatically when items reach target prices. This Amazon Prime exclusive feature works only with'Fulfilled by Amazon' products and cannot apply coupons to purchases. Users must carefully monitor Auto Buy orders since cancellation is limited to a 24-hour window after purchase. Time is of the essence when it comes to Amazon Prime Day . Snooze on a great deal, and it'll probably be gone before you can toss it in your shopping cart. Your best bet for using AI to scour Amazon for Prime Day deals is the company's own Alexa for Shopping bot.

The answer may already be in your home. To achieve a smart home, you need a voice assistant to run it. A smart home assistant, usually folded into a smart speaker, will let you command your smart home with your voice and run your various routines. It also acts as a center for every gadget you want to add to your home. And you can add almost anything these days, from smart garage control to even voice-commanding your blinds .

Amazon's Alexa has had an AI upgrade. Now she's got more to say Amazon's Echo smart speaker - more commonly known as Alexa - is getting an AI-powered upgrade which will roll out across the UK. Alexa+ turns the digital assistant into a more chatty device which Amazon says will be able to follow threads and be more proactive in its responses. There has been criticism the Echo has stagnated since its launch in 2016, while AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude have become much easier to communicate with. It will be interesting to see how users react to this - we expect this could be polarising, with some enjoying the more relaxed, familiar interactions while others may find it disconcerting, said Jessica Miller, head of data insights at FDM/CCS Insight. UK consumers will notice an immediate difference, she added.

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The new "Send to Alexa" feature lets you send Kindle Scribe notebooks to your Echo device with just a couple of taps. Alexa+ has been rolling out to users across the board (well, users with Prime, that is) as its Early Access becomes more widely available. Now, there's a new feature to explore if you're also a Kindle Scribe user: Send to Alexa. This lets you send your Kindle Scribe notes to the AI-powered assistant so you can ask questions about them without having to refer back to your Kindle. It won't automatically do this with all your notes.

Alexa+ has been rolling out to everyone with a Prime membership, even if you didn't ask for it. Here's how to change it back. If Alexa's in your home, you might've been one of many users this month who were suddenly moved from the original Alexa to the new AI-powered Alexa+ voice assistant . Amazon announced in early January during CES that it'd be rolling out the new assistant to all Alexa+ Early Access customers, and that turns out to also include all Prime members, even if you weren't on the Early Access list. Alexa+ is still in Early Access, as it has been since it launched in spring last year, meaning that the assistant isn't fully complete, nor is it requiring you to pay the $20 monthly fee if you don't have Prime.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. I spent two months with the Echo Dot Max after many years with the Echo Dot. Here's who should trade up, and who should stand pat. Built for Alexa+ and packed with smart features, the Amazon Echo Dot Max makes for a solid smart-home foundation, but that doesn't mean every Echo Dot owner should automatically move up to it. The first wave of "made for Alexa+" devices has arrived, and among them is Amazon's flagship Echo speaker--the Echo Dot Max, the successor to the earlier, fourth-generation Amazon Echo speaker.

Alexa.com brings Amazon's voice assistant to web browsers with meal planning, smart home controls and cross-device continuity for typing-based interactions.

Should You Buy a Smart Plug? Smart plugs can add controls to any outlet, but they aren't perfect for everything. Here's our guide to using one and which ones to buy. A smart plug is a pretty handy gadget, but for a while they were touted as a device you could add to anything to turn it smart. That's true to a certain degree; you can use a smart plug to add instant power control to any outlet, letting you turn the outlet on and off at your command from anywhere in your home (or even if you aren't there).