Amazon’s Alexa Will Order Restaurant Delivery On Command
Prime members can now order from Amazon Restaurants by uttering a few words
Amazon is here to help humans be even more lazy in 2017. Today the company announced it’s added voice-ordering support for Amazon Restaurants, meaning Prime members can order food from scores of restaurants simply by uttering a few words to digital assistant Alexa.
Sadly, Alexa does not want to listen to your long and complicated order involving a bunless burger and “light” mayo, so users can only reorder meals they’ve ordered previously.
A press release explains how the voice-ordering works:
Prime members can ask Alexa to reorder from Amazon Restaurants by saying a restaurant name or cuisine type, for example, “Alexa, order sushi from Amazon Restaurants.” The service pulls a customer’s order history from a specified restaurant or cuisine type and lists meal options available for reorder. The selected meal is then sent for delivery to a customer’s default address. Once an order is placed, Amazon delivery partners deliver the food in one hour or less.
Alexa ordering is available in all 20 cities where Amazon Restaurants is currently up and running: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Manhattan, Miami, Minneapolis, Northern Virginia, Orlando, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, and Tampa. And with Alexa coming soon to Ford vehicles, that means users will be able to order dinner by uttering a few words while they’re stuck in traffic.
While the support for Amazon Restaurants is new, Amazon Echo users have had the ability to order pizza via Alexa since early last year, thanks to a partnership with Domino’s and, last month, another one with Pizza Hut.
Alexa can assist users going out, too: The virtual assistant can provide restaurant recommendations based on Yelp reviews on request. Ask Alexa where the nearest barbecue restaurant is, for example, and it will respond with a name, location, and other Yelp-based information such as star ratings.