Amazon announces new feature enabling political donations via Alexa

Washington
CNN
—

Starting next month, customers will be able to donate up to $200 to US presidential campaigns through Amazon Alexa.

Amazon announced the new election feature on Wednesday and said candidates can begin registering on Thursday to receive campaign contributions through the voice-activated assistant.

“With Alexa Political Contributions, you can donate to the 2020 US presidential campaigns by simply saying, ‘Alexa, I want to make a political contribution’ or ‘Alexa, donate [amount] for [candidate name]“, Amazon said in an announcement.

The minimum donation using Alexa is $5, while the maximum is $200 per campaign. Alexa can only donate to presidential campaigns that have signed up to accept Alexa donations.

Alexa Political Contributions is powered by Amazon Pay, according to the company, and will use default payment information associated with accounts to complete campaign donations.

Just over a year away from the 2020 election, Alexa is “strengthening its election knowledge and experiences,” according to Amazon, which described Alexa as an objective source that can provide customers with information about polls, ballots and polls. election results.

Amazon said new features will be added to Alexa over the next year, and will “learn a lot about the types of questions and information you want Alexa to be able to share, and release features that address those requests,” according to the company.

“Alexa itself has no opinion on politics or candidates,” Amazon said.

The company touted the information Alexa provided to customers during last fall’s midterm elections, including questions about when polls opened and who won certain races.