The Holiday season is upon us, and Amazon is making its AI shopping assistant a lot more useful ahead of major shopping events like Black Friday. The company has announced over 100 new Alexa for Shopping capabilities, letting customers manage subscriptions, create gift lists, change delivery instructions, and ask billing questions simply by asking. The new features are already available to Amazon customers in the US.

Alexa for Shopping could already help you find products, compare prices, and track discounts. Now, Amazon is making it useful for some of the less exciting parts of online shopping, which I think is where an AI assistant could come in handy.

Managing gift lists and subscriptions is getting simpler

Alexa can now help organize your gifting plans for your friends and family. You can ask it to create a wish list, add products to an existing list, or check what’s still left on a wedding registry. However, I find the subscription management features more interesting. For example, if you use Amazon’s Subscribe & Save service, you can simply ask Alexa to skip your next delivery, pause a subscription, or change how frequently an item arrives. You can also find out how much money you’ve saved through Amazon Prime this year or check when your Audible subscription renews.

Alexa can help you deal with billing and delivery issues

You can tell Alexa to update your delivery instructions, check your gift card balance, find out where a refund is, or get help with an unfamiliar charge. You can access the updated assistant through the Alexa icon in the Amazon Shopping app or on Amazon’s desktop website.