Source: TheDrum
Coffee drinkers will soon be able to place their Starbucks orders within the comfort of their own car after the coffee company announced a partnership with Ford.
Ford vehicles equipped with its SYNC3 voice-activated technology, which has Amazon’s voice service incorporated into it, will soon allow drivers to place their orders using the command, “Alexa, ask Starbucks to start my order”.
The partnership with Ford and Amazon Alexa was demoed at company’s annual shareholders meeting, which took place in Seattle last week.
Starbucks chief technology officer Gerri Martin-Flickinger announced the new feature on stage and showed a video of her testing the integration.
“It only takes a little imagination to think about where conversation ordering will show up next,” she said.
The Ford partnership builds on the coffee brand’s announcement in January that it had partnered with Amazon to allow customers to order their favourite products through the retail giant’s voice assistant by saying “Alexa, order my Starbucks”.
Through the service customers can place and pay for an order in advance and pick it up at a nearby Starbucks store without waiting in line.
The integration with Alexa is part of Starbucks’ wider growth strategy, which is being in-part fuelled by tech innovations.
Ford began working with Amazon’s Alexa in January with its hybrid and electric vehicle owners begin able to interact with and control their cars from inside their homes using Amazon Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices.
The car manufacturer is now planning to build on the integration by incorporating Alexa into all vehicles with its SYNC 3 car technology.
