Amazon Alexa+ Beta Testers Warned Service Felt ‘Unbearably Erratic’ Ahead of Launch

Thanks to the immense popularity of the AI voice assistant, Amazon's Alexa service has become a major part of many people's lives. Used in a variety of different ways, many people rely on Alexa for things like listening to music, travel tips, finding answers to questions, operating technology, and much more.

Since many people rely on Amazon's Alexa for so much, the service getting an upgrade is likely to be an exciting prospect for a lot of users. However, it may be worthwhile for users who are contemplating migrating to consider some of the complaints that Amazon Alexa+'s beta testers had about their experiences before making the move.

Amazon Alexa+ Beta Testers Warned of ‘Unbearably Erratic’ Behavior and Real-World Consequences

In January 2026, Business Insider published an article featuring internal feedback that the beta testers for Amazon Alexa+ provided before the service was unveiled publicly. The outlet reported that the comments came from a Slack channel featuring more than 6,400 Amazon employee beta testers who gave feedback in October 2025. The same report explained that Amazon has long encouraged employees to test its new products and services and give internal feedback before wide release.

Unfortunately, Business Insider's article stated that dozens of employees reported that using the voice assistant for regular tasks quickly broke down once they signed up for Amazon Alexa+. While that is remarkable enough, the article quoted two pieces of feedback from beta testers that were especially eye-catching. The first piece of feedback focused on how frustrating Alexa+ was due to how unpredictable the service was.

"The behavior has become unbearably erratic. I just wanted to test the new experiences, but I wasn't expecting to get everything messed up."

Another piece of feedback stated that Alexa+ not working as intended caused them to suffer a real-world consequence. According to feedback that Business Insider quoted, one employee beta tester who was a software engineer for the company had a pet fish die due to Alexa+ exceeding their request to turn off a single light.

"When I ask Alexa to turn off the light, it should turn off the light, not everything on the strip. It turned off the power strip that my aquarium filter is on and killed my fish."

The article also quoted other interesting pieces of feedback that were provided on the Slack channel, including one that questioned whether users would pay for Alexa+. "All my experiences thus far with Alexa+, inclusive of this one, haven't convinced me that, other than the improved conversation flow, anything would justify paying a subscription fee." Another beta tester complained that at that time, Alexa+ failed to play songs that were requested. "It's so discouraging that we're in Q4 2025 and Alexa+ still can't play a song I ask for." The article also revealed that several beta testers expressed a desire to switch back to the regular Alexa service, with one explaining that the voice assistant had ceased being useful since they migrated to Alexa+. "None of my devices, including the Alexa app, are responsive anymore."

While this feedback is fascinating to learn about and definitely worth considering before migrating to Alexa+, it is important to note that malfunctions during beta testing of a product are expected. In fact, discovering malfunctions during beta testing is the entire point of the process, so they can hopefully be fixed before wide release.

Amazon Responded to the Report About Alexa+’s Beta Testing Malfunctions

As part of the aforementioned Business Insider article about Alexa+'s beta testing, the outlet featured a response from Amazon about the feedback the latest version of the voice assistant received. The company pointed out to the outlet that the version of Alexa+ that was being beta tested in October 2025 was different from the currently available service. An Amazon spokesperson also provided a statement, which pointed out that the process Business Insider's article described is industry standard for new products.

"As with any other consumer technology company, it's a standard part of the development process to beta-test products and features internally, well before they're distributed to customers." Most importantly, the Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that now that tens of millions of regular users have migrated to Alexa+, the "overwhelming majority" of the feedback they have received has been positive.

According to Amazon's website, migrating to Alexa+ is free to users with an Amazon Prime account. However, anyone in America who doesn't have Amazon Prime and wants to sign up for Alexa+ will have to pay a monthly charge of $19.99. The monthly fee will differ for users without Amazon Prime accounts who live outside of America. For example, Amazon.ca states that Canadians without an Amazon Prime account who want to use Alexa+ will pay $27.99 a month.