You can now shop in your car thanks to Amazon’s Alexa and Ford motors

Photograph by Rick Turcozy, available via CC BY 2.0

Ford Motor Co and Amazon have recently announced a collaboration that will see Amazon’s Alexa integrated into Ford vehicles as a voice-activated digital assistant.

With one voice command, you’ll be able to order and buy your shopping through the platform, with no human or digital interaction needed. All whilst you sit in traffic.

The voice enabled technology will allow users to ask Alexa for product advice, add items to their Amazon shopping cart, and purchase the products in the same way as they would if they were using the device at home.

This new integration will further push the drive towards frictionless payments. Consumers will be able to shop with a single command, whenever they want.

According to Bloomberg Technology, Ford will be offering “Alexa in the car” this summer on vehicles equipped with its Sync 3 infotainment system. Alexa in the car will allow drivers to order items on Amazon, listen to audiobooks, play music, check news, search for restaurants and get directions. The driver just needs to push a button on the steering wheel and say, “Alexa,” followed by a command such as “find an Italian restaurant.”

The way we process payments are constantly evolving. This year tech giants will use AI to further enhance payments technology, as the market shifts towards greater technological platforms which enable fuss-free and swift payments. Consumers’ expectations are inevitably also growing. The more advances there are within payments, the more we get used to them, and become less tolerant of the existing methods. The way we process payments has shifted from a one-to-one customer experience to a voice command in the car, which requires no payment method, transaction or human interaction for a purchase.

The news follows the recent announcement of Amazon Go, a checkout-free shopping experience that is currently in beta testing.

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