Alexa Gets Sassy as Amazon Rebuilds Its Voice Assistant Around Subscriptions

SEATTLE — Amazon.com Inc. is giving its Alexa voice assistant customized personality styles and expanded voice options for select subscribers. Amazon Prime and Alexa+ users can access the features depending on regional availability, while the company faces competition from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini-powered assistant, and Apple’s Siri.

The update lets eligible users switch among behavioral profiles including “Sassy” and “Chill.” The new options are tied to Amazon’s paid ecosystem as the company works to modernize its decade-old voice assistant technology. Amazon’s anticipated conversational AI service, the premium “Alexa+” tier, is included in that strategy.

Alexa’s five personality styles change the assistant’s conversational tone without changing the accuracy or utility of its data retrieval. **Original** retains the traditional Alexa persona, while **Brief** provides concise, direct answers with minimal conversational filler.

The other settings are **Chill**, with a relaxed, conversational tone; **Sweet**, with a warmer, encouraging manner; and **Sassy**, a playful and witty profile. Sassy requires an “adults-only” confirmation screen before activation and can tease users or provide lighthearted, cynical responses to certain prompts.

Users can say, “Alexa, change your personality style,” or open the Alexa mobile application, select **Devices**, choose a specific Echo, open **Device Settings**, and select **Alexa’s Personality Style**. Voice options are available through similar steps under **Alexa’s Voice**, or by saying, “Alexa, change your voice.”

Up to eight regional voice types can be selected. The settings apply to individual devices rather than entire accounts, so users who want the same conversational experience on multiple Echo devices must configure each unit separately.

These changes do not affect the “Wake Word,” the verbal trigger that activates the microphone. The default “Alexa” trigger can still be changed manually through the device settings menu in the Alexa app, with alternatives including “Echo,” “Computer,” and “Amazon.”

Historically, Amazon’s hardware division has operated under tight financial scrutiny. Reports indicate that the Worldwide Digital unit, which includes Alexa and Echo devices, has faced significant operating losses over the years. Amazon is reserving the new expressive voice customization options for Amazon Prime members and Alexa+ users while seeking direct monetization and user retention within its paid ecosystem.

The subscription-based approach differs from Amazon’s earlier use of high-profile licensed celebrity voices. Beginning in 2019, the company introduced paid celebrity voice models using neural text-to-speech technology, starting with actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Media personalities Melissa McCarthy and Shaquille O’Neal were added in 2021. The voices were sold as individual add-ons, generally priced from $0.99 to $4.99, and let users hear celebrity-recorded jokes, weather reports, and custom alarms.

Amazon quietly phased out and completely disabled the celebrity voices in mid-2023. The move came as the industry shifted away from pre-recorded celebrity contracts and toward dynamic, large-language-model-generated synthetic voices.

For younger users, Amazon still offers child-friendly customization, including interactive animal voices. Those features remain gated behind the Amazon Kids+ subscription service, require compatible Echo Dot Kids hardware or devices with kid mode enabled, and are currently limited to devices configured to the English language.