Amazon's Alexa+ comes to India with Hindi support and a long list of local apps
The upgraded AI assistant is now in early testing for all Indian users, free for Prime members after trials end and ₹2,000 a month for everyone else.
Key points
- Amazon launched Alexa+, its upgraded AI assistant, in India in mid-2026 with both Hindi and English support.
- During Early Access the feature is free; after testing ends, Prime members keep it free while non-Prime users pay ₹2,000 (roughly $20.85) a month.
- Amazon's smart home devices in India grew 20% year-on-year, the company said, though it did not release absolute sales figures.
- Alexa+ is now live in six markets outside the United States, including the UK, Canada, Brazil and Germany.
Amazon has switched on Alexa+, a generative-AI-powered conversational assistant (the kind that can hold a back-and-forth conversation and remember what you said earlier in the same chat) for users in India. The rollout covers Hindi and English, and users can switch between the two mid-sentence.
India has more than 600 million Hindi speakers. That's the market Amazon is after.
What can it actually do?
Alexa+ handles multi-step tasks: ordering groceries through Amazon Now (the company's quick-delivery service) and controlling smart home devices. Indian services wired in at launch include food delivery platform Swiggy, Zomato's ticketing arm District, travel sites TripAdvisor and MakeMyTrip, restaurant-reservation app EazyDiner, Amazon Music and JioSaavn.
Amazon describes the new voice as more expressive than the original Alexa. That's a company claim, not an independently tested result.
What does this cost, and who pays?
Right now, nothing. Early Access is free for every Indian user who joins. Once testing closes, Prime subscribers get Alexa+ at no extra charge; everyone else pays ₹2,000 a month, about $20.85 at current exchange rates.
A Prime membership in India costs considerably less than that monthly fee, so anyone planning to use Alexa+ regularly has a clear financial reason to check whether Prime makes sense for them.
How did we get here?
Amazon first brought Alexa to India in English in 2017, then added Hindi in 2019. The generative-AI version was announced in 2025 and reached all US users in 2026. TechCrunch reported in June 2026 that Amazon had begun inviting Indian users into a Hindi testing programme, followed by an English trial shortly after. We've covered Alexa+ four times since 19 August 2026, including a 2 September story on a new scam-detection feature that lets shoppers verify whether a message or call genuinely came from Amazon.
Alexa+ has now launched in six international markets outside the US, among them the UK, Canada, Brazil and Germany. Amazon says its smart home devices in India grew 20% compared with the previous year, though it gave no baseline number to put that figure in context.
Honest read: Amazon's racing to make Alexa relevant again in a market where voice assistants haven't become daily habits. Locking in integrations with Swiggy, Zomato and local travel platforms before rivals matters, but whether users find it genuinely useful or treat it as a novelty will show up in renewal numbers once the free period ends.
Common questions
Do I need a new device to use Alexa+ in India?
No new hardware is required. Alexa+ is a software update rolling out to existing Alexa-enabled devices in India through the Early Access programme.
Will Alexa+ understand regional accents and mixed Hindi-English speech?
Amazon says users can switch languages mid-sentence, which suggests it's built for the code-switching common in everyday Indian conversation. Independent testing of accent handling hasn't been published.
