Alexa Will No Longer Process Requests Locally, Recordings Will Be Sent to Amazon

Like Assistants of yesteryear, Alexa has always had an option for users to opt out of Telemetry. It made users less concerned about Amazon collecting their data, but that’s about to change. Soon, Alexa will not process requests locally, meaning your recordings with Echo devices will be sent to Amazon with no option to disable the same whatsoever. Here’s everything you need to know.

In an email that Amazon sent to its Echo customers, the firm mentioned that starting March 28, users will lose the Do Not Send Voice Recordings option for Alexa on their Echo devices. Thereafter, every interaction with Alexa on Echo devices will be sent to Amazon for processing.

We are reaching out to let you know that the Alexa feature ‘Do Not Send Voice Recordings’ will no longer be available beginning March 28th. As we continue to expand Alexa’s capabilities with Generative AI features, we have decided to no longer support this feature.

For those unaware, Amazon recently introduced Alexa+, the firm’s first consumer generative LLM. The discontinuation could be closely linked to Amazon training their AI model. If you use Alexa, you have no option but to consent to these changes. Or you’ll have to stop using Alexa once and for all.

We won’t try to justify Amazon’s move. However, AI services like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are already collecting data to train models. But, some of them also have an option to opt-out.

Amazon has reaffirmed its users in that email that Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in Amazon’s secure cloud. It’s pretty evident that Amazon is seriously betting big on Alexa+ as the history of the assistant has been a bit rough in terms of adoption in and outside the ecosystem.

What are your thoughts on Alexa processing requests on the cloud and the removal of the Do Not Send Voice Recordings option? Let us know in the comments below.