Amazon Alexa Can Now Order You Takeout From Panera Bread - CNET

Amazon Alexa wants to make it easier for you to order takeout. Amazon is partnering with Panera Bread to launch its updated Food Skill APIs, which allows Alexa to take food orders through voice commands. Beginning today, MyPanera members will be able to use Alexa on Echo Show devices to order their favorite Panera meals using just their voice. 

People will be able to tell Alexa their specific order or use Amazon's voice assistant to search through hundreds of menu items, the companies said. You can also ask Alexa to place, track and reorder items using voice commands. 

Those looking to test out this service will need to have an Echo Show device, along with a MyPanera membership and a stored payment method and address. 

"Ordering with Alexa gives customers an easy and natural way to connect with their favorite restaurants at-home," Mark Yoshitake, GM and director of Alexa Skills, said in a press release on Wednesday.

Amazon has already partnered with Domino's, Pizza Hut and Papa John's to allow its users to order pizza through its Echo Show devices. Those partnerships began in 2017, but currently don't feature Amazon's latest update to its Food Skills technology. 

Amazon's new update brings conversational AI to Alexa in order to make the ordering process more natural, the company said. Users can now tell Alexa to customize their orders by adding or removing ingredients or they can search for meals that feature a specific type of food, such as spinach.