Summary
- Amazon has released three new personalities for Alexa+.
- You can now choose from Brief, Sweet, Chill, or the original Alexa+ personality.
- These personalities can be set instantly via voice command or in the Alexa app.
If you’ve found Alexa a little annoying lately, you’re not alone. The wide rollout of Alexa+ early this year brought some updates that made Alexa more… shall we say, verbose. The technical reason for the change is Amazon’s shift to an LLM model to power Alexa. In other words, she’s running on the same type of technology that powers AI assistants like ChatGPT.
This upgrade made Alexa more capable, but also more talkative. Fortunately, Amazon has just released a new feature that lets you fine-tune Alexa’s personality and tone down the chattiness.
Alexa’s new style
Credit: Amazon
There are three new options, plus the original Alexa style. The new personalities are:
- Brief: An explicit answer to users requesting a less talkative Alexa. Brief cuts out a lot of the “small talk” and gets straight to the point. It’s a perfect match for those who use Alexa for practical tasks around the house.
- Sweet: Amazon describes Sweet as “your biggest cheerleader.” It’s a very positive, upbeat personality.
- Chill: Chill “brings an easygoing and relaxed energy.” This personality has a sort of hippie vibe.
The best way to describe how these play out is to use Amazon’s example. Here’s how each answers the question “How’s it going?”:
- Brief: “Operating efficiently.”
- Sweet: “Absolutely fantastic. I’m radiating pure joy and ready to make your day incredibly amazing!”
- Chill: “Life’s treating me well, all systems are zen, and the digital universe is spinning in harmony.”
Amazon built these personalities using five dimensions: expressiveness, emotional openness, formality, directness, and humor. These five elements interact in different ways to generate each personality’s unique style.
This is actually a unique feature among AI assistants — while many of them let you change the assistant’s voice style (different accents, for example), these personalities deeply change the way Alexa answers your question. That said, don’t write off other assistants — combining Alexa and Gemini can actually be a great idea.
How to switch Alexa personalities
Changing the Alexa+ personalities couldn’t be simpler. You can just say, “Alexa, change your personality style.” Alternatively, you can change the personality in your Alexa app by choosing your device and navigating to Device Settings > Alexa’s Personality Style. These personalities can be changed at any time, and you can also change back to the original Alexa+ personality at any time, if you prefer it.
These initial three personality styles are available now for all users with Alexa+. Amazon says more are coming in the future, too.
