Americans pulling into a Starbucks drive‑thru may be greeted by a friendly staff member. But at some locations, it is actually an AI robot entering the orders.
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.
And there are signs that the effort is working.
the article buries some of the most important info:
so how much of the “turnaround” here is actually about robots or AI?
AI is an easy thing to throw to shareholders instead of just saying “we’re going to blow our opex budget.”
This is also a classic case of going off the reservation. There’d be no need to streamline the menu had they not lost the plot in the first place. Good coffee, decent price, comfy chairs. In the '90s.
My Starbucks partner number is the PIN to my phone, so I’m somewhat familiar with the organization. Last time I went to one, with a friend to cowork for a bit, the only seating available was wood (I’m skinny, so that hurts my ass in a hurry) and the power outlets in the seating area were shut off.
It was a hostile environment, not the plush armchairs and smooth, inoffensive jazz of old.
It’s no longer a third place, but then again, nowhere else seems to be anymore, either.
interesting insights! I’m more annoyed at the article than anything, since it’s using ai as clickbait
I don’t think the company knows what it is anymore. They still pretend to be all about quality coffee and customer connection, but then push wild promotional drinks and very low service times while closing stores and cutting staff. They are clearly a fast food chain, but deny it, and do a poor job of it while also being a lousy place to hang out.
I worked at corporate for a while, and the culture, as it appeared to me, was all about folks vying for promotions and more desirable projects, with little weight put into what was or wasn’t good for the people who are in stores, customer or barista.
Maybe the new CEO has a better grip on this stuff, but his remote hq next to the golf course tells me he’s not gonna be better, also his previous company, Chipotle, isn’t exactly a place I seek out in 2026.
In college, I’d head down to the (then only) U-Village location almost daily. Friendly, welcoming staff who eventually started my order before I even got to the counter. Wi-Fi wasn’t yet a thing, so I’d bring my manual typewriter on nice days and sit outside. If, as Seattle is wont to be for much of the year, drinking al fresco was unpleasant, I’d bring a book and plant my ass in a plush arm chair.
The only food available was pastries. And they were quite busy without branching out elsewhere and devaluing the core product. One of my favourite perks (pun not intended) was the free pound of coffee each week. However, back then, they still had Arabian Mocha Sanani, which was only a half-pound allowance because of the price difference, and that was some damn good coffee. Throw it in a French press, drink it black. Sublime.
Now it’s just overpriced commodity coffee delivered in a hurry in an environment that has a bafflingly complex menu and wants you to leave. Much like McDonald’s.