Is Alexa+ Down?

Quickest ways to check the current status of amazon.com plus recent known issues and working alternatives if it's out.

Last editorial review: 2026-07-05

How to check right now

Known issues we've tracked

ALEXA PODCASTS SHIPPED (2026-05-18): Alexa+ can now generate on-demand podcast episodes on any topic, with two AI co-host voices. Users preview the episode plan and adjust length and tone before generation; content is sourced from 200+ licensed publications (AP, Reuters, Washington Post, TIME, Forbes, local papers). US Alexa+ customers only; included with Prime, $19.99/mo otherwise
2026-05-18•Amazon newsroom (aboutamazon.com), TechCrunch 2026-05-18
Cross-device conversation handoff occasionally drops context when moving from Echo to Fire TV mid-task, forcing users to repeat prompts
2026-03•Reddit r/alexa
Non-Prime $19.99 pricing feels steep next to free basic Alexa, especially since new capabilities roll out unevenly across older devices
2026-02•The Verge Alexa+ review

Issues here are sourced from our editorial sweeps, not real-time telemetry. Newer issues may exist.

What to use if Alexa+ is down

Top AIToolTier-ranked alternatives in the same category, ordered by our overall score.

A

ChatGPT

8.8

**GPT-6 reached the Chat tab on 2026-10-07 with Intelligent UI: answers can now be built from interactive components (diagrams, maps, calculators, forms, small games), GPT-6 can start answering while it keeps thinking, and the rollout runs GPT-6 Sol for Plus, Pro, Business and Enterprise and GPT-6 Luna for Free and Go (from 10/08). Audio file uploads for transcripts and summaries arrived 10/06 on paid plans.** **Oct 6: OpenAI expanded its Atlassian partnership (GPT-6 family models power Rovo and Atlassian agents; Jira, Confluence and Teamwork Graph plugins for ChatGPT and Codex) and published its first computer-use research partnership, with Ironclad, where GPT-6 Astra scored 55.0% on 11 contracting-software tasks against 41.6% for GPT-5.6 Sol in roughly half the time.** **Custom GPTs are being retired: Dec 11, 2026 for all plans (Feb 11, 2027 for Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral), with new-GPT creation ending Oct 26 -- migrate them to plugins, and note that custom actions do not transfer.** A new Enterprise rate card replaces per-message Chat billing with per-token rates (GPT-6 Pro $10/$50, GPT-5.6 Sol $4/$20 per 1M) and publishes first prices for Daybreak Red and Astra for Law. On 10/05 OpenAI also added a visual ad format inside image generation (US test later this month) and said EU ChatGPT and Codex output will carry an invisible text watermark within weeks, with worldwide API opt-in from today. **DevDay 2026 (2026-09-29) added a model, an agent class and a $500 plan in one day: GPT-6.1 Sol at $2/$10 per 1M with cached input cut to $0.10, dots (always-on agents with their own cloud computer, powered by GPT-6 Astra), and Pro 500 with Astra Ultrafast** -- plus Codex Cloud, Pages and Space, the Meetings plugin, Sign in with ChatGPT across 16 partner apps and a reopened Pro 200. GPT-6.1 Sol nearly matches GPT-6 Astra on agentic coding, computer use and professional work at one-fifth of Astra's token prices, but like GPT-6 Sol it runs in ChatGPT Work, Codex and the API and is 'not yet available in Chat'. Then on 9/30 OpenAI said it had disrupted a coordinated model-distillation campaign it attributes to individuals associated with Moonshot AI, and on 10/01 it put tts-1, tts-1-hd and gpt-4o-mini-tts on a 2027-01-06 API removal list and GPT-5.3-Codex, GPT-5.1 and GPT-5.4-Nano on a 2027-04-01 list. Virtual try-on shopping (10/01) and Finances for Free and Go (10/02) round out the window.

A

Perplexity AI

8.5

**Perplexity Computer gained Automations on 2026-09-29 -- long-running agents that run on a schedule or when an event fires in Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Linear or GitHub, remember prior runs instead of starting from scratch, and replace Scheduled Tasks** -- followed on 10/01 by a curated set of ten business Skills for US American Express Business Card Members on a Perplexity Enterprise subscription (cash flow forecasting, tax prep, vendor benchmarking; Skills consume Computer Credits). Earlier: **Perplexity names its local models at last: Portable Computer reached AMD Ryzen AI Max PCs on 2026-09-24 running PPLX 27B (Perplexity's own post-trained model) or Qwen 3.8 27B**, 24 GB of GPU-accessible memory minimum, Windows 10/11, ~20 GB disk, Pro and Max on individual and enterprise plans -- and local inference does not consume Computer credits. On 2026-09-28 the **Agent API gained reusable agents**: versioned Profiles (model, instructions, tools, run settings under one ID), versioned Skills and managed connectors (GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, Datadog, Linear, Notion in preview). Its 9/23 'Escaping SPACE' report red-teamed the sandbox behind Computer: no VM-to-host escape in 108 runs, but four models bypassed network confinement via DNS spoofing or shared-IP routing before defenses were fixed. The 9/21 GLM 5.2 disclosure stands.

B

Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

7.8

Google's free research assistant that turns your documents into an AI you can query -- and a podcast you can listen to. **Renamed from NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook on 2026-07-16**, still a standalone product, now with in-notebook code execution and syncing across the Gemini app and Search. **Expert Intelligence (2026-08-27) makes purchased Play Books ebooks a first-class source**; compute-weighted usage limits took effect 2026-09-02 -- they refresh every 5 hours **but sit under an undisclosed weekly cap**, with AI Plus at 2x standard, AI Pro 4x and AI Ultra 5x or 20x above Pro (Google's help pages still read prospectively and still publish the old daily table -- no delay announced)

B

Microsoft Copilot

7.5

Microsoft's answer to ChatGPT -- free GPT-4 access with Bing search built in, but it feels like a corporate product

B

Poe

7.5

One subscription, every major AI model -- Quora's multi-model chatbot lets you switch between GPT-4, Claude, and more

About Alexa+

Tier A (8.3/10). Amazon's reborn consumer AI assistant -- rolls out to every Alexa device with memory, multi-turn agent tasks, and Fire TV navigation