Future Update: Digital Ordering May Take Hold at Starbucks Soon!

As the world becomes increasingly depenedent on technology, very few industries will resemble anything like they do today as these new technologies roll out.

In this article I'd like to quickly discuss the work that Alibaba and Starbucks are doing together to completely transform the morning coffee experience.

In recent news, Alibaba Group’s global research institute DAMO Academy on Wednesday showed off their slick new “smart-ordering” system. The thing that makes it so impressive is that it allows customers to place complex orders via voice. Beyond that they are even able to update the order in real-time. But what makes this so crazy is the fact they are taking out the human element and replacing it with something more efficient but also more lifeless...

Let me explain... In a demonstration, the system took a complex order of 34 coffees in 49 seconds – three times as fast as a human barista, who did the same in two minutes and 37 seconds. Ok so it is three times as fast but its not human interaction. Do you just care about the coffee or are you like me and also feel you are paying for the experience. Don't get me wrong, ordering my coffee and getting it more quickly is good. But getting rid of people in the process. Well that seems bad to me. I find value in human interaction.

However, to give this new relationship between Alibaba and Starbucks a bit of credit, I do think they have made quite a few cool innovations.

For example in the video above it describes their newest partnership in Shanghai and how it has created a cool educational VR experience. This is the type of development I can get behind. We should be using technology to make our human experience greater, not eliminating humans from the experience...

Let me know your thoughts about this! Thanks for reading Techblogger!

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