Starbucks introduces a digital barista allowing consumers to place orders using voice commands

Starbucks customers can now place orders using only voice commands. The orders can be personalised according to individual requirements and tastes, just as a human would do. The feature is being beta tested to some users, and a wider roll out is expected soon. The features are available in the iOS app for Starbucks, and through the Amazon Echo and other devices that are embedded with Alexa. Gerri Martin-Flickinger, chief technology officer for Starbucks says, “Our team is focused on making sure that Starbucks voice ordering within our app is truly personal and equally important was finding the right partner in Amazon to test and learn from this new capability. These initial releases are easy to use providing a direct benefit to customers within their daily routine and we are confident that this is the right next step in creating convenient moments to complement our more immersive formats. We expect to learn a lot from these experiences and to evolve them over time.” Cutting edge artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies are used for the application. The interface is a combination of a chat window and a voice input window. Users can either order over voice in the application, or use text. If a user specifies all the customisation options available for a particular item, then the item gets added to a list of orders. If there are additional customisation options available, the app prompts the user to choose between those options. One thousand customers around the world are in the initial phase of the rollout. Over the summer of 2017, the beta program is expected to get wider in scope. An Android version is expected to land later this year. For the Amazon Alexa platform, Starbucks allows users to order “the usual”. Users simply have to say “Alexa, order my Starbucks”, and the regular order for the customer gets ready for pick up.