Amazon's generative AI assistant Alexa+ is entering the Japanese market. At a launch event today, the company demonstrated Japanese-language conversational features and automation of everyday tasks. Early access begins on 29 October.
Alexa+ is a Japanese-language version that enhances the traditional Alexa with generative AI. It understands spoken requests and the surrounding context, providing more natural conversational support for information searches, schedule management and smart-home device controls. The launch event featured experience rooms recreating a living room, kitchen and bedroom, where the company demonstrated ongoing dialogue and context-aware responses.
The company also demonstrated features that use information obtained through conversation to carry out tasks. Alexa+ can read images and documents, organise the required information, add items to a calendar and manage schedules, as well as draft absence-notification emails, all through a single conversation. In one example, it extracted information from a printed document, organised dates and costs, detected conflicting appointments and addressed them.
Integration with smart-home devices and external services has also been expanded. Demonstrations showed everyday tasks such as searching for content from vague clues, suggesting recipes and making restaurant reservations being handled through conversation. Integration with domestic services, including food services, ticket information and recipe searches, is planned to expand in the future.
The Japanese version places particular emphasis on localisation for the Japanese market, with a local team of approximately 1,000 people in Japan involved in development. It supports Japanese-specific expressions, including honorific language and seasonal events, and has undergone repeated testing in environments modelled on actual homes. After early access, the service will become a ¥3,000-per-month subscription, but Amazon Prime members will be able to use it at no additional charge.