Alexa, too, is heavily pushing their Alexa+ Subscription "upgrade" On the screened devices now it's virtually all you see is ads and come-ons for it, and it will also periodically add in a little "By the way" pitch following an interaction. From what I've heard from others, like all tech these days, the AI + version is full of bugs and loses some functionality of the regular version.

Note, the Google devices are also used for interacting with your smart home (Lights, Thermostats, plugs, etc.) I haven't noticed much dropoff in responses with the plain jane version, but I have no intention of upgrading or ever paying for a subscription. The problem is, these devices as originally released were intended to be revenue generators for the two companies, with Amazon counting on people using Alexa to fascilitate purchases on Amazon.com. That didn't happen and the devices became money losers, so now they have to find ways to turn that around or just kill them