Alexa is about to echo everything you say to her to Amazon.
Owners of the Amazon Echo have long had the option to process requests locally, meaning their information wasn’t sent to Amazon’s servers — but that option is going away starting March 28.
The company sent an email to Echo customers to explain the changes.
“We are reaching out to let you know that the Alexa feature ‘Do Not Send Voice Recordings’ that you enabled on your supported Echo device(s) will no longer be available beginning March 28th, 2025,” the email reads.
“As we continue to expand Alexa’s capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature.”
Starting on March 28, voice recordings from the Amazon Echo will be sent to and processed in the cloud — though the email said that “they will be deleted after Alexa processes your requests.”
However, the email also noted that if the Echo’s settings are set to “Don’t save recordings,” Voice ID will not work. According to Ars Technica, Voice ID allows users to access more personalized features on Alexa, such as sharing user-specified calendar events, reminders, music and more.
“Thus, in order to keep that functionality, users will have to manually change that setting as well,” Ars Technica reported.
Essentially, everything said to your Amazon Echo from March 28 on will be sent to Amazon’s cloud, and having the setting to make Amazon delete recordings will lessen the functionality of features on the device that were available by default when purchased.
However, Amazon clarified to The Post that “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” was an opt-in feature that was only available to customers in the US with devices set to English. They claimed that less than 0.03% of customers used the feature.
The feature was also only available on three Echo devices: Echo Dot (4th Gen), Echo Show 10 and Echo Show 15.
“The Alexa experience is designed to protect our customers’ privacy and keep their data secure, and that’s not changing. We’re focusing on the privacy tools and controls that our customers use most and work well with generative AI experiences that rely on the processing power of Amazon’s secure cloud,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.
“Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of tools and controls, including the option to not save their voice recordings at all. We’ll continue learning from customer feedback, and building privacy features on their behalf.”
The move comes on the heels of the company’s unveiling of its new Alexa with a complete AI overhaul, called Alexa+.
Customers on Reddit were not happy with the announcement, with many commenting expressing their disappointment.
“As a blind person this is really frigging angry-making as voice control of apps is especially useful and important in terms of access,” one person wrote.
“Alexa has been a game changer for our super adhd household. I’m really not looking forward to dismantling it,” someone added.
“So I now have to worry my Echo is recording everything,” another exasperated customer said.
“I’m going downstairs to unplug and trash my Alexa right now!” one commented.
