SEATTLE – Starbucks Corporation hosted its 25th Annual Meeting of Shareholders this week, where Kevin Johnson, who will become Starbucks CEO on April 3, reinforced the company’s approach to elevating the brand across retail, channel development and digital.

During the meeting, the company announced the expansion of its mobile order and pay platform to give customers more options to order Starbucks beverages while on the go by leveraging Amazon Alexa. With the planned integration of Amazon Alexa and Ford vehicles later this year, Starbucks customers with a Ford car equipped with SYNC 3 will be able to order their Starbucks beverage by saying, “Alexa, ask Starbucks to start my order.” Starbucks announced in January voice ordering capabilities within the Starbucks mobile iOS app and the Amazon Alexa platform.

Starbucks also shared more details on the expansion of My Starbucks barista, now available to more than 100,000 customers across the United States. Powered by Artificial Intelligence for the Starbucks Mobile App, customers can place their orders via voice command or messaging interface. The My Starbucks barista is currently rolling out to iOS customers with Android users being added in subsequent releases.

Starbucks’ digital innovations continue to gain momentum with the launch of one-to-one personalization. While still early in the evolution of this service, Starbucks has delivered personalized offers to customers directly on the front of the screen of the mobile app, including the complete rollout of suggested selling and recommendations. Total Starbucks Rewards member spend is up more than 20% versus last year, driven by member growth and higher spend per member, reflecting a more engaged member base that takes advantage of mobile order and pay and personalized marketing offers and recommendations.

Starbucks also provided more detail on social gifting. With the introduction of the Outlook add-in, customers can gift a beverage to friends and family through Microsoft Outlook. Starbucks also unveiled the availability of gifting through Apple’s Messages app with Apple Pay beginning in April.