Amazon is expanding its AI-powered digital assistant Alexa+ with new features. The company announced Thursday that it is adding four new integrations to the service that will allow the assistant to work with Angie, Expedia, Squareand Yelp starting in 2026.
These additions allow customers to book hotels, get quotes for in-home services, and schedule salon appointments, among other things. With Expedia, customers can compare, book and manage hotel reservations or tell Alexa their preferences to receive personalized recommendations. (eg “Can you find me pet friendly hotels for this weekend in Chicago?”)
The new services join existing Alexa+ integrations with Fodor, OpenTable, Suno, Ticketmaster, Thumbtack and Uber.
Similar to how ChatGPT now integrates apps into its chatbot, Amazon aims to make it easier for consumers to use various online services through its digital assistant. For example, you can ask Alexa to call you an Uber or book a dinner table with OpenTable.
You can also chat with the AI assistant in natural language, having ongoing conversations, refining your request as you go.
Whether users will embrace this idea, of course, remains to be seen.
However, Amazon offered a small glimpse into how early Alexa+ users are using the integrations, noting that so far home and personal service providers like Thumbtack and Vagaro have seen “strong” engagement.
Using AI assistants as app platforms is a model being tested across the industry as another way to bring AI to consumers more broadly. But this will require users to adapt to a new way of doing things, as many are used to engaging with online services via the web or mobile apps. For consumer behavior change to be successful, using AI-powered apps should be seen as easy, if not easier, than the existing model.
For this to work, AI providers would have to at least match the range of online services provided by a traditional app store, which is already a more curated selection than what’s available over the web. Or, providers should be very good at recommending apps to use at the right time without seeming too pushy, as users may perceive spam as advertisements.
