Amazon on Wednesday unveiled the first major overhaul of its Alexa voice assistant since its introduction more than a decade ago, embedding it with generative artificial intelligence.

The effort carries significant weight at Amazon, which has plowed billions of dollars into Alexa since its launch in 2014 in the hope of putting the service into a range of devices and ultimately driving sales on its main e-commerce website, a Reuters report stated yesterday.

“Alexa knows almost every instrument in your life, your schedule, your smart home, your preferences, the devices you’re using, the people you’re connected to, the entertainment you love and uses many of the apps you use, a lot of the services you need,” said Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of devices and services, at a launch event in New York.

The new service is called Alexa+, Panay said, echoing the nomenclature of the higher tier of many tech and streaming service offerings. Alexa+ is free for Amazon Prime members and is priced at $19.99 a month for non-Prime users.

The service will be available in March to some users, with the rollout expanding to more people over time. Amazon had considered pricing the service at $5 or $10 per month for all users with no Prime tie-in.

Panay demonstrated how Alexa can store, through prompts, customer preferences — for example, a household member is vegetarian and prefers Greek and Italian food but eschews peanut butter. It can be used to make dinner reservations and send timed texts or reminders.

The service can connect to Amazon products such as Ring doorbells to show recordings from its cameras.

Alexa director Mara Segal said Alexa can review documents such as a homeowners association contract so that a resident knows what is allowed, like installing solar panels.

The event marked the unveiling of a secret project known internally as “Banyan” aimed at making Alexa more conversational. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can learn from data and improve over time.