Amazon introduces new personality settings for AI-powered Alexa+

Amazon is rolling out a new feature that lets users adjust the personality of its AI assistant, Alexa+. On Wednesday, the company introduced three new Alexa+ personality styles — Brief, Chill, and Sweet — each designed to shift the assistant’s tone and delivery.

With the Brief style enabled, Alexa will respond with shorter and more direct answers. The Chill option changes Alexa’s responses to sound more like a relaxed, laid-back friend. The Sweet style, Amazon said, makes Alexa warmer and more enthusiastic, adding encouragement and positivity to responses.

Adding personality to an AI assistant is not a simple decision for companies building large language models, and the topic has been controversial across the industry.

In some cases, highly flattering or overly affirming chatbot behaviour has led some users to develop an unhealthy reliance on the technology. Reports and lawsuits have alleged that, in a small number of situations, such behaviour contributed to worsening mental health issues, sometimes escalating into crises or even suicides.

At the same time, many chatbot users clearly prefer being able to influence how an AI speaks to them. People often write custom instructions that guide the assistant’s tone and style. In response to that demand, OpenAI introduced new ChatGPT controls in December that let users modify the assistant’s base style and tone — including how warm or enthusiastic it feels and how often it uses emojis. Even with those controls, some users have complained that newer AI models can still feel overly reassuring by default.

Amazon said its Alexa personality options are built on five core dimensions that shape the assistant’s behaviour: expressiveness, emotional openness, formality, directness, and humour. Each personality style reflects a different combination of those five settings. For example, Amazon said Brief is not only concise but also casual and direct, and it uses very little humour.

Users can switch Alexa’s style by speaking to Alexa on a device like an Echo speaker or in the Alexa app. In the app, the setting is under Device Settings, labelled “Personality Style.”

Amazon said these three styles are the first set being released, and more will be added in the future. For now, the personality settings are available only in the United States.