Amazon told the BBC Alexa+ would be available in all countries which currently have Alexa.

In the US, it will be available from March, with other countries getting it later in 2025.

It will be available on devices as far back as the second generation Echo Dot, which launched in 2017.

For its devices with screens, it will be available as far back as the first generation Echo Show 8, which launched in 2019.

It is clear that Amazon expects Alexa+ to do more than its predecessor – and know much more about its users’ lives.

Mara Segal, director of Alexa, said people will now be able to share “just about anything” with the virtual assistant – the idea being that by sharing emails and photographs, it will be able to search through them for things you request.

Other demonstrations included using it to book a taxi and a dinner reservation at a restaurant.

Thomas Husson, principal analyst at Forrester, said the relaunch was a tacit admission by Amazon that its original vision for smart speakers had failed.

“By subsidising hundreds of millions of Echo connected speakers, Alexa managed to enter households in the hope of generating incremental e-commerce sales,” he said.

“This strategy failed and the company invested $25 billion (£20bn) in its Alexa division, without truly revolutionizing smart homes.”

He said it was “about time” Amazon created a “truly smart and useful assistant”.

But he warned that to “truly differentiate” itself, Alexa would need to distinguish between personal and household data, which “equals a big privacy and trust hurdle”.

And Dr Stuart Millar, lead AI engineer at Rapid7, said the move “makes sense” as Alexa has “lagged behind” competitors such as ChatGPT – but warned the real test will be when regular people get their hands on it.

“We’ve seen big tech companies launch ambitious AI features before, only to backtrack when unexpected issues arise, or it hasn’t behaved as expected,” he said.