Amazon is Building a Smarter Alexa That Can Do Multiple Things at Once
Amazon is Building a Smarter Alexa That Can Do Multiple Things at Once
Amazon is developing a new, more powerful version of Alexa called "Moonraker" that can handle several tasks in one conversation — say, booking a ride and sending a text to a friend without you asking twice, according to internal documents reviewed by Business Insider.
The catch is cost. Amazon's own projections show the computing power needed to run Moonraker could cost more than $100 million in 2026 alone. That figure has alarmed some of Amazon's senior employees, who worry the company has already spent too much building the latest version of Alexa (called Alexa+) Business Insider.
Internal documents show Amazon is still deciding whether to release Moonraker as planned, delay it, or scale back what it tries to do to keep costs lower.
What Moonraker is supposed to do
Think of today's Alexa like a very fast mail clerk: you give it one job at a time, it completes it, and you ask for the next thing. Moonraker would be more like a personal assistant who understands that when you say "book me a ride to the airport and text my mom," those are connected requests that should happen together.
The technology behind Moonraker would rely on hundreds of NVIDIA graphics processors — the same chips used to power artificial intelligence systems — and would use a reasoning model made by Anthropic, a company in which Amazon has invested heavily Engadget. It would also be able to understand images and text, not just respond to your voice.
The problem Amazon is facing
Amazon already launched Alexa+ at the start of 2026, and users have reported problems. Alexa+ sometimes struggles with simple requests that the older, non-AI versions of Alexa handled without trouble Engadget.
This creates a real tension: Amazon is trying to roll out a product that still has basic reliability issues while simultaneously planning an even more ambitious system that would attempt harder, riskier tasks. When an AI assistant makes a mistake on a simple request, the harm is limited. But if Moonraker books the wrong ride or texts the wrong person, the consequences are higher.
What happens next
Here is what is actually uncertain: whether Moonraker will launch as currently planned, be delayed, or have its capabilities reduced to lower costs. The internal debate inside Amazon is ongoing. The company does not yet seem confident that the benefits of a task-juggling Alexa will justify spending over $100 million a year on computing power — at least not on the timeline originally considered.
There is also a question the reporting does not answer: if Moonraker does launch, will Amazon eventually rely on its own AI models to power it, rather than Anthropic's, to bring costs down.
For consumers, the practical message is straightforward. No launch date, region, or device has been announced. Alexa+ itself is rolling out slowly and carefully — nationwide only in the US, still in early access in the UK — which suggests Amazon is already being cautious about moving too fast with AI assistants before the technology is solid Engadget. Adding a more expensive, more complex system on top of that is not imminent.
What this moment actually reflects is a company working through a real problem in real time: how reliable does an AI assistant need to be before its cost makes sense to the business. That is a harder question than it sounds, and Amazon is clearly still finding the answer.
