Amazon Launches Alexa+ in Japan, Letting Its Generative-AI Assistant Book Restaurants and Order Food by Voice
Amazon Japan on October 29 began offering Alexa+, a version of its voice assistant rebuilt around generative AI, the Nikkei reported. The company says the new Alexa holds a more natural conversation and can act for users, booking tables at restaurants and placing food orders through services including Uber Eats, Demae-can and Tabelog. It works on Echo smart speakers and Fire TV devices, among others.
Alexa first arrived in Japan in 2018, and Amazon says it has been used around 30 billion times over the past three years. The upgraded assistant is designed to cope with the ambiguity and context of spoken Japanese, and it can handle several tasks in one request, such as setting calendar entries or replying to email. For the first time it can also be used in a web browser, as well as through the Alexa smartphone app, and it keeps a record of conversations so a user can move between devices without starting over.
Shopping is a large part of the pitch. Users can search for, compare and buy items on Amazon by voice, and the assistant tracks prices and alerts people when a product they are watching gets cheaper. Alexa+ launched in the United States in 2025, and Japan is its 13th country. Owners of compatible devices get it free at first; after a set period it will cost ¥3,000 a month, although Amazon Prime members will pay nothing extra.
What it means in practice
Gianmaria Visconti, Amazon’s regional manager for Japan, said more than 15 million non-Amazon products in Japan, such as televisions, already work with Alexa, which gives the company a wide base to upgrade. It also puts Amazon in a growing contest over who acts on a consumer’s behalf. Meta recently launched its Muse agent in Japan with links to Mercari, Money Forward ME and Ticket Pia, and LINE Yahoo has gone after smaller businesses with its free Agent i Biz tool.
An assistant that can order and pay raises practical questions. Users will want to know how purchases are confirmed, what happens when a voice command is misheard, and how conversation records are stored and used. Those issues are close to the concerns the government is now weighing as it opens a review of Japan’s AI Act, including unexpected behaviour by autonomous AI. Restaurants and delivery platforms, meanwhile, will be watching whether voice ordering brings in new customers or simply shifts existing ones to another channel.
What to watch next is how many households keep paying once the free period ends, which other Japanese services sign up as partners, and how Amazon handles disputes over orders the assistant places.