SEATTLE _ Amazon.com's Alexa artificial-intelligence software could generate $10 billion worth of business a year for the company, stemming from device sales and voice orders from Amazon's site.
Analysts with RBC Capital Markets tried to gauge Alexa's financial impact. It's a daunting endeavor given that it is the "very early days" for the software, the analysts wrote in a note distributed Friday.
Nevertheless, their projections show that by 2020 the sale of products that incorporate Alexa _ the Echo line of devices, for example _ could reach $5 billion a year.
Increased shopping on Amazon's site via voice commands through Alexa could mean another $5 billion in the pocket for the e-commerce giant. Alexa could become 5 percent of Amazon's business within three to five years, the RBC analysts estimated.
There could be another revenue stream coming from the proliferation of "skills," as Alexa apps are known. So far they're free _ but that could change. And another potential source of cash comes from more enterprises creating Alexa skills and then adopting Amazon's cloud computing services, the machine that powers Alexa.
