Amazon’s Two New Echo Speakers Present a Clear Winner — With or Without Alexa+

“Alexa, what new things can you do?” That’s the first question I posed to Amazon.com Inc.’s latest pair of Echo smart speakers. Like so many other people, I have a long history of asking these devices to play music, give me the weather forecast or control a smart light or two. But that’s as far as my interactions with them have typically gone.

With the new $100 Echo Dot Max and $220 Echo Studio, Amazon hopes that’ll change. And the reason is more advanced artificial intelligence.