Amazon echo makes recommendations based on paid advertising.

Imagine an Echo OS update that allows Alexa to make recommendations.

For example:

You: “Alexa, who would you recommend for plumbing services in San Francisco?”

Alexa: “I hear good things about Jane’s plumbing company“

This is an opportunity to capitalize on advertising as a business.

There will be multiple companies paying for ad space, so to alleviate the congestion, it will be strictly regional and perhaps it’s programmed to play on a shuffle system.

The ad targeting would be similar to facebook’s algorithms that utilized stored data and trends.

The problems I foresee are the range of the ads. Since the device is solely audible, people wouldn’t be as receptive to the mediums