Amazon Adds Delivery Tracking, One-Time Add-Ons, and Gift Ideas to Alexa+

Amazon has long grappled with the reality that owners of its Echo smart speakers haven’t used the Alexa voice assistant for shopping as much as originally envisioned. However, the tech giant hasn’t given up on this ambition: starting today, Alexa+ is rolling out new shopping capabilities in the U.S. and Canada, including a dedicated shopping hub, tools to add items from recent orders, and personalized product recommendations.

The company has been enhancing Alexa+ to function more like a proactive shopping companion, introducing features such as automated deal tracking and auto-purchase functionality. With deal tracking, users can set price alerts so Alexa notifies them when an item in their cart or wishlist drops below a specified threshold. If auto-purchase is enabled, Alexa can automatically place the order once the target price is reached.

Amazon is now transforming its screen-equipped Echo devices—specifically the Echo Show 15 and Echo Show 21—into interactive shopping destinations through a new interface dubbed “Shopping Essentials.” This dashboard enables users to track deliveries in real time, review recent orders, receive reminders to reorder household essentials, and manage saved items and shopping lists—all from one centralized view.

The interface also supports seamless browsing: shoppers can tap to explore more products, instantly add them to their cart, and proceed directly to checkout.

To access this new experience, Amazon customers can simply say, “Alexa, where’s my stuff?” or “Open Shopping Essentials.” In the near future, a shopping widget will also appear on the home screens of Echo devices for quicker access.

Another upcoming feature will let Alexa device owners add items to an upcoming delivery at any time—right up until the package leaves the fulfillment center. While this mirrors a capability recently added to Amazon’s website and mobile app (and thus isn’t exclusive to Alexa+), it has not yet been implemented on Alexa-enabled devices.

Alexa+ is also gaining a gift recommendation tool. Users can describe who they’re shopping for or what occasion they’re preparing for, and Alexa+ will display curated product suggestions by category directly on-screen.

According to Amazon, Alexa+ is now available to “tens of millions” of users, with these new shopping features live in the U.S. and Canada. Despite mixed user feedback, the company notes that the percentage of users opting to downgrade to the non-AI interface remains in the “very low single digits.”