Alexa Plus learns to (sort of) swear at you

Do you ever wish that the technology in your life would stop putting on airs of propriety and just get REAL with you? Have you hunted through your phone’s keyboard settings in search of the options to turn off any censoring and let you use all the best swear words you know? Amazon’s got an Alexa Plus update to share that could make you very happy — or might just leave you feeling all the more frustrated.

Voice assistants are small modern-day miracles, and for impressive as it is that they work at all (let alone as well as they tend to), we’ll concede that their personalities tend to be a little one-note: helpful above all else. While assistants like Google’s Gemini give you a choice of voices, you’re generally just picking the tone and accent you prefer to hear. And while you can go with one that’s more energetic or more analytical, they’re all nice, good helpers.

Well, maybe that’s not you. And if it’s not, Amazon’s new personality styles for Alexa might include a better fit.

The company got these started last month, announcing three new styles in addition to the original Alexa: Brief, Chill, and Sweet. None of these options change what Alexa Plus is capable of doing, but just give the service a different vibe for how it interacts with you: Brief keeps the chit-chat to a minimum, Chill will shoot the breeze with you for as long as you like, and Sweet dials up the personal cheerleading to 11.

That was already a nice selection to have, but today Amazon shares the fourth new personality joining them: Sassy. And Sassy swears.

Well, sort of swears at least:

Sassy brings unfiltered personality with razor-sharp wit, playful sarcasm, and occasional censored profanity—you asked for it, and we’re delivering it. For those who appreciate humor with an edge, this style delivers entertaining banter and clever comebacks that keep things interesting.

We’re very curious exactly what that censorship looks like — is Alexa going to be actually bleeping things out, or are we talking more “Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon” word substitution?  We’ve already reached out to Amazon in the hopes of confirming just what to expect.

What we do know, though, is that Sassy should deliver the same sort of acerbic wit Amazon showcased a few months ago in a series of commercials featuring comeidan Nikki Glaser.

Amazon says that it’s implementing extra security checks that have to be passed before Sassy can be used, so you’d better hope your tweens haven’t figured out your password. Your personality choices are also device-specific, so you’re free to have “nice” Alexa Plus for family spaces, and “nasty” Alexa Plus on your phone.

Is an option like this something that might finally tempt you to give Amazon Plus a shot? Should Gemini be rushing to rip Sassy off? Let us know down in the comments.