Owners of the Amazon Echo have long had the option for the device to process requests locally, thereby keeping their information off of Amazon’s servers. That functionality is going away starting on March 28.

Amazon Echo users will no longer have the option to process their Alexa requests locally, which means all of their voice recordings will be sent to the

If you own an Echo smart speaker, it will soon lose a key privacy feature — and be replaced with cloud processing of all voice commands.

Amazon is discontinuing a feature that allowed users of some of its Echo smart speakers to choose not to send their voice recordings to the cloud. According to an email the company sent to users that was posted on Reddit, it will disable the feature that allowed select Echos to process Alexa requests locally on the device on March 28th, 2025.

The move is seen as connected to the launch of its generative AI-powered Alexa Plus, which is slated to be released later this month

On March 28, ahead of its Alexa+ rollout, Amazon will get rid of the “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” setting on Echo devices that let people store voice recordings locally.

Amazon Echo models that were previously able to process Alexa requests locally will no longer do so, instead sending those voice recordings to the cloud. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the change to The Verge after a Reddit user posted a PSA about it on Friday,

Some Echo devices have a feature that allows you to block voice recordings from being sent to the cloud, but Amazon is killing it.

All voice recordings of commands or queries given to Amazon voice assistant Alexa on the company’s Echo devices will go to the Amazon cloud starting March 28.