What Is Alexa (and What’s the Best Alexa Speaker for 2025)?

Alexa is the name of Amazon’s personal digital assistant, which lets you use voice commands to control a compatible device for features such as streaming music, getting news reports, or even turning on your smart lights. Alexa is found primarily on Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers but is also available on some devices made by other manufacturers.

All of the Echo devices are good (and some are very good) audio devices, but what makes them especially attractive is that you control them primarily by using simple voice commands. To access a song, an artist, or a music channel, you can say “Alexa, play the Dead Milkmen,” for example, and your speaker starts playing the music you requested from your music subscriptions. All Amazon Echo speakers can play music from Amazon Music Prime, Pandora, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and Apple Music. Some services, such as Pandora and TuneIn, don’t cost anything extra, but Amazon Music Prime requires a Prime subscription (and you can get Amazon Music Unlimited for an additional cost). Apple Music, SiriusXM, and Spotify Premium also require subscriptions.

Echo speakers are an inexpensive way to have a multiroom audio system. You can play the same music all over your house or different tunes in different rooms (though your music subscriptions may impose some restrictions on that). The Alexa app allows you to group speakers in different rooms or zones, and you simply have to tell your speaker which room you want the music to play in (or whether it should play in all of them).

The Alexa smartphone app is mostly for setup and configuration. You can also use it to add new abilities or view to-do and shopping lists. Most of the time, you access Alexa’s features without having to interact with a screen at all (the Echo Show devices include built-in screens). You can walk into a quiet room and ask for music or step into a dark room and ask for lights.

Alexa does a lot more than stream music. Alexa can answer general questions (“Alexa, who was Guy Fawkes?”), make quick cooking conversions (“Alexa, how many pints are in a gallon?”), help with math homework (“Alexa, what’s 9 times 48?”), or create a to-do list (“Alexa, add ‘make doctor’s appointment’ to my to-do list”). Everyone in my family uses Alexa to add to a weekly shopping list. You can also use an Alexa speaker to make phone calls or as part of an in-house intercom system to talk through other Alexa speakers inside and outside your home. The list of built-in capabilities and thousands of third-party Skills continually expands.

Alexa makes controlling smart-home devices far easier. All you have to do is say “Alexa, turn off the den light” or “Alexa, lock the front door,” and the speaker will take care of it for you. Alexa works with more smart-home devices than any other voice platform, though both Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri are catching up.

Alexa is getting smarter. In February 2024, Amazon announced Alexa+, a new version of the personal assistant that’s powered by generative AI. Users can opt out of the service for now, but it’s unclear if that will continue in the future. Alexa+ is expected to be more conversational and easier to use, as well as smarter — for instance you will be able to tell it the things you like and dislike and it will remember them and incorporate that info into future responses.

We will be testing Alexa+ when it’s available. It’s launching first on the Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21, if you have one of those, and will also be available on your older Echo devices (except for first-gen Echo devices, the Echo Show 2nd Gen, and the Echo Tap). Amazon Prime subscribers will get access to Alexa+ for free; otherwise it’s $20 per month.