South Korea's largest phone network, SK Telecom, has introduced a droid that can brew 20 various beverages, including customized coffees, on demand.
Coffee Made by Bot
The robotic arm of the Barista Robot is driven by sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI), allowing it to do everything from pouring your drink to sealing the lid of your cup.
As featured by Evening Standard, this barista robot may be fitted with surveillance cameras to aid in maintaining safety, as well as the latte-making tasks that it is already capable of doing.
The new drink-bot uses AI to carry out its duties. SK Telecom claims that its AI can process vast amounts of information, making it useful for managing multi-location coffee shops.
The system can supposedly track sales at the coffee shop, allowing for a more accurate analysis of the store's financial performance. The report says it can tell you what is selling, how much goods you are using, and how it is doing right now in your business.
The bot is meant to be able to do all of this assessment and provide the data to the business owners via a mobile app.
Coffee Shops Without Staff
In the next five years, SK Telecom company plans to have unmanned coffee shops up and running, with robots preparing customers' coffee.
The new robot was developed in collaboration with Dooson Robotics, another South Korean business that has successfully exported its robotic systems to Western Europe and North America.
SK Telecom thinks robots might make life easier for clients by automating the mundane tasks associated with operating a coffee shop business.
A robot brewing your morning coffee and then cleaning up after itself may not be such a terrible thing after all.
A robot barista may seem enticing, but here is a question: Will it ever make a mistake with your order? Other than that, surely the device will not waste your time with idle conversation or even attempt to flirt with you. However, the gadget's appearance is likely to raise red flags among café employees.
Robotic Innovations for Enterprises
This new barista robot is not the only automated coffee machine around.
According to news articles published last year, a business named Artly has been testing out bot baristas at a number of West Coast coffee shops, which it says can "make a perfect cup of coffee" using algorithms for computer vision. By combining forces, Singapore's retail management and food and drink industries have introduced a robot that serves coffee at the country's railway stations.
In addition to automated coffee makers, tech entrepreneurs have created robotic arms that flip burgers at fast food outlets, automated pizza-cooking machines, and sushi makers that can make nigiri, maki, and omusubi (rice balls).
