As of March 28, Amazon Echo users will lose the ability to process Alexa requests locally, resulting in all voice recordings being transmitted to Amazon’s cloud servers.

According to a report by Ars Technica, Amazon has notified customers who have enabled the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” feature on their Echo smart speakers and displays, informing them that this privacy-enhancing feature will no longer be supported as of March 28. This decision comes after initially introducing local voice processing to provide users with more privacy.

Amazon’s email to customers states, “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.”

This development coincides with the rollout of a new version of Amazon’s voice-controlled AI assistant, now referred to as Alexa+. The move has raised concerns about Alexa’s privacy implications, which have been a subject of concern for consumers and regulators in the past. Notably, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million in a 2023 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission regarding children’s privacy issues.