Amazon will let you donate to presidential candidates with Alexa

Amazon announced a major new feature for Alexa as it gears up for the 2020 elections.

In a post on Wednesday, Amazon announced that Alexa users will be able to donate to presidential candidates through the voice-activated virtual assistant’s feature as early as next month. 

According to Amazon, all a user will have to do is say a phrase like “Alexa, I want to make a political contribution” or “Alexa, donate [amount] to [candidate name]” and they can make a contribution of anywhere from $5 to $200 per campaign for each election cycle. Donations are powered by Amazon Pay, which is connected to a user’s payment information via their Amazon account.

Candidates running in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections looking to accept political contributions through Alexa can starting tomorrow. According to Amazon’s onboarding information, it appears that Alexa Political Contributions is currently just open to U.S. presidential candidates. 

Candidates must sign up for this feature in order to receive donations. Amazon has also set up a passcode process to avoid unintended contributions from its users.