Americans pulling into a Starbucks drive thru might think they are being served by a friendly staff member. But at some locations, the voice listening to the order is actually an AI robot. Behind the counter inside the store, baristas can lean on a virtual personal assistant to recall recipes or manage schedules. In the back of the shop, a scanning tool has taken on the painstaking process of counting the inventory, relieving staff of one of retail's most tedious chores, in a bid to fix the out-of-stock gaps that have frustrated the firm. The new technology is part of the hundreds of millions of dollars the 55-year-old coffee giant has been investing as it tries to win back customers after several years of struggling sales.

This article was co-published with Understanding AI, a newsletter that explores how A.I. works and how it's changing our world. In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen published an essay that became a kind of manifesto for Silicon Valley during the 2010s. "Software is eating the world," Andreessen declared. Computers and the internet had already revolutionized a bunch of information-oriented businesses: books, movies, music, photography, telecommunications, and so forth. Software also played a major supporting role in more tangible industries. New cars had dozens of computer chips in them, for example, and the oil and gas industry made heavy use of software to discover new drilling sites. But Andreessen, co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, argued that the software revolution was only getting started.

An eerily human-like robot cashier who can serve drinks and chit-chat with customers will soon be up and running in Dubai, meaning baristas could become a thing of the past. Donna Cyber-Cafe is set to open in Dubai next year, with a'supermodel' robot serving coffees and ice creams to customers, without the help of any humans. Donna, who has been created to be the spitting image of Eastern European model Diana Gabdullina, will offer speedy service and will even be able to start conversations with customers, take selfies or tell a fairy tell for those who ask. The impressive new droid has been created to appear like a real person, allowing Donna to read customer's emotions and move in an eerily realistic way. Donna Cyber-Cafe will be opening in Dubai next year.

I know what you're thinking: "more on coffee. It's like the caffeine world has gone mad. But, if you're anything like me, it may be challenging to process all of the arguments for and against drinking coffee -- it just seems so polarized! Have you ever woken up in the morning just feeling great? Coffee is even better than that.

The Robotic Coffee Master is designed to complete all steps autonomously, including grabbing the cup and the pot, grinding beans, transferring the grind, pouring and serving.By RTN Staff – 9.29.2020 Is the world ready for a robotic barista? One company is placing big bets that indeed it is. Chinese-based OrionStar has introduced the Robotic Coffee Master, which it describes as "a humanoid robot barista that simulates master-level brewing techniques and guarantees a refined taste in every cup." The robot, which can also prepare and serve tea, reportedly combines dual 6-axis robotic arms and 3,000 hours of AI learning.

As the voices decrying mobile's negative impacts on people and society grow louder, Starbucks President and CEO Kevin Johnson yesterday urged an audience at the National Retail Federation's Big Show not to be afraid of reinventing the future through technology, but insisted innovation must come with a focus on fostering human interaction. Community is ingrained in Starbucks, which was inspired by founder Howard Schultz's visits to lively espresso bars in Italy, said Stephanie Mehta, Fast Company editor-in-chief and moderator of the session "Nurturing humanity in modern-day retail." As one of the pioneers of leveraging mobile to enhance customer experiences through loyalty, payments and order-ahead tools, Starbucks also understands that sometimes customers just want to quickly pick up their order and get on their way. "We have to boldly reinvent the future," Johnson said. "If mobile internet has created these new scenarios, we embrace that, but we don't do it at the expense of human connection."

The future of work looks grim for many people. A recent study from Forrester estimated that 10% of U.S. jobs would be automated this year, and another from McKinsey estimates that close to half of all U.S. jobs may be automated in the next decade. The jobs that are likely to be automated are repetitive and routine. They range from reading X-rays (human radiologists may soon have much more limited roles), to truck driving, to stocking a warehouse. While much has been written about the sorts of jobs that are likely to be eliminated, another perspective that has not been examined in as much detail is to ask not which jobs will be eliminated but rather which aspects of surviving jobs will be replaced by machines.

In the food industry, it seems, the robot revolution is well underway, with machines mastering skilled tasks that have always been performed by people. In Boston, robots have replaced chefs and are creating complex bowls of food for customers. In Prague, machines are displacing bartenders and servers using an app. Robots are even making the perfect loaf of bread these days, taking charge of an art that has remained in human hands for thousands of years. Now comes Briggo, a company that has created a fully automated, robotic brewing machine that can push out 100 cups of coffee in a single hour -- equaling the output of three to four baristas, according to the company.

Not only does Starbucks go through mounds of coffee beans to satiate its raving fans, but they also have mounds of data that they leverage in many ways to improve the customer experience and their business. With 90 million transactions a week in 25,000 stores worldwide the coffee giant is in many ways on the cutting edge of using big data and artificial intelligence to help direct marketing, sales and business decisions. When Starbucks launched its rewards program and mobile app, they dramatically increased the data they collected and could use to get to know their customers and extract info about purchasing habits. The mobile app has more than 17 million and the reward program has 13 million active users. These users alone create an overwhelming amount of data about what, where and when they buy coffee and complementary products that can be overlaid on other data including weather, holidays and special promotions. Here are just some of the ways that Starbucks uses the data it collects.

The cold, steely arm of Fernando the Barista swirled the foam of my matcha latte, set it down gently and waved goodbye from inside a glass case. Where you can get robot pizza and robot salad, and now, a robot matcha. There were humans inside the small coffee shop on Market Street, but only some of them ordered drinks. Some of them came in just to gawk at Fernando: The machine was sleek and white, like an Apple product, and its glass enclosure made it seem like a small animal on display. "They all have'it' pronouns," said Sam Blum, Cafe X's community manager.