Amazon brings Alexa+ to its music streaming service, Amazon Music

Alexa+, Amazon's new generative AI assistant, is getting integrated into the company's Music app on iOS and Android. The integration is rolling out now to customers in the Alexa+ Early Access program.

Thanks to this integration, you can do things like explore music genres, find out about an artist's influences, or trace the origin of a sample in a track. Amazon calls Alexa+ a "deeply knowledgeable and conversational music expert" that can answer questions like, "What's this song about?".

You can also ask about chart positions for a song, changes in a band's lineup over the years, who is playing at a certain festival, or even the weird musical connections between artists who seem to have nothing in common.

For situations where a song's title is on the tip of your tongue, you can use vague descriptions to find what you are looking for. You can ask for a track based on a few lyrics you remember, the artist's name, or even the movie you heard it in, like the opening theme from The Sopranos.

Alexa+ in Amazon Music can also build highly specific, personalized playlists from a single voice command. Instead of just asking for a genre, you can request something like "a playlist for a Sunday reset" or "a playlist of 2010s hits that keep me moving fast, and start with a track from Nicki Minaj". The system considers the mood, activity, and specific artist mentions to generate a playlist that you can then save and modify later.

To access the new integration, you need to be part of the Alexa+ Early Access program and have the latest version of the Amazon Music app. Inside the app, a button labeled "a" in the bottom right corner activates the new conversational features. This is currently available across all of the app's subscription tiers for those in the program.

Alexa+ was announced back in February and represents Amazon's attempt to catch up in the generative AI arms race. The assistant can manage calendars, summarize emails, and create complex smart home routines using its foundation on Amazon's Nova models and Anthropic's model via Amazon Bedrock.

As of June, the company claimed it had over a million users in its early access program, but the rollout has been slow and accompanied by user complaints about latency and AI "hallucinations".