Will Echo Owners Actually Pay for Alexa?

Since its introduction in 2014, Amazon’s Alexa platform has been a free gateway. It has powered and sold hundreds of millions of Echo devices, enabled voice searching and control for Prime Video, and even made minor inroads into voice shopping. As Amazon explores adding more powerful artificial intelligence to Alexa, making it more conversational and theoretically more helpful, there is reporting that Amazon is considering charging for use of the Alexa platform, or at least creating a paid premium tier of service.

It’s not entirely clear what a paid Alexa subscription would include that the current free platform does not, beyond the broad suggestion of new AI capabilities. Alexa already does some smart recommending and home automation that presumably relies on more basic AI capabilities.

Based on how Echo owners currently use their devices, it is also not clear how enhanced AI might warrant an additional subscription expense. Most owners rely on an Echo as an audio device for playing music and podcasts, as an internet interface to ask questions, like about weather and sports scores, or as a smarter clock-radio.

More specifically, almost two-thirds of Echo owners use their device at least “a few times a week” for music (64%) and asking questions (63%), and over half for setting alarms and reminders (54%). About one-third use it a few times a week or more often to control smart devices such as lighting and security systems (Chart 1).