- Alexa+ can now buy discounted items for you
- Choose your item and set your price in advance
- It’s part of a broader Alexa+ shopping update
Amazon has announced a host of new shopping features coming to its Alexa+ AI assistant, including a new option to automatically purchase the products you’re looking for when they reach a lower price, which sounds like it might not be so good for your bank balance.
This was actually announced back in February, but is now rolling out to early testers in the US and Canada, according to The Verge. It’s also part of a new update to the Shopping Essentials interface that appears for the first time on the Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21 displays.
Here’s how it works: You tell the robot about an item you want to buy and a price threshold you should pay attention to. You then have the option to give Alexa+ permission to automatically purchase that product once it reaches that price, using your default purchase and delivery details.
It’s comforting to see some level of control there, but I can imagine lining up for a variety of deals I want to take advantage of, forgetting about them, and then receiving a deluge of purchase notifications once the next sales season hits.
Alexa+ will also be able to monitor your current shopping cart and wish lists for potential deal opportunities, and the same auto-shopping feature can be found in the Rufus AI assistant found on Amazon’s website and in Amazon’s mobile apps.
As for the broader Shopping Essentials update, it brings all your important Amazon data together in one place for ease and convenience: current orders, items pending delivery, products on your shopping lists that you plan to buy, etc.
Other additions coming to Alexa+ are personalized gift suggestions (so you describe who you’re buying for to the AI and it selects some ideas) and the option to add new items to a delivery at the last minute, until it leaves Amazon’s warehouse.
Alexa+ is still in beta testing and remains invite-only, and users in the US and Canada can request access – here’s how. You’ll also need one of the newer smart displays: Echo Show 8, Echo Show 10, Echo Show 15, or Echo Show 21.
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