SEATTLE _ Users of Amazon.com's Alexa will now be able to order items for near-immediate delivery using the voice-activated digital assistant, another sign of how the e-commerce giant is trying to transform technological bets into a cash-generators.
Prime Now, as the one-to-two hour delivery service is known, offers a more limited selection of items than the all-encompassing Amazon.com website. Geared toward satisfying immediate needs, it has its own smartphone app and a separate online site. Some 30 cities, including the company's hometown of Seattle, have the service.
So now owners of an Echo or other Alexa-enabled device can talk to their gadget and say, "Alexa! Order nachos from Prime Now!" and see them appear a few hours later. Alexa will even make recommendations to add to the order and pick the next available two-hour delivery slot, which is free for members of Amazon's $99-a-year Prime loyalty program.
The move underscores Amazon's knack for wrapping together seemingly disparate parts of the multipronged company to turn a buck. It also shows the profit-making potential of a talking artificial-intelligence experiment that's still in the early stages of learning how to bring home the bacon.
Last week analysts with RBC Capital Markets predicted that by the end of the decade Alexa could be generating $10 billion in revenue for the company.
That's partly from the sale of devices such as the Echo but also through significantly increased shopping through Alexa, which could generate 5 percent of Amazon's business within three to five years, the analysts said.
