Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Turnaround in Customers (bbc.com) 106
Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation -- testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory -- as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.
The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle's turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.
The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle's turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.
Drug Dealers. (Score:4, Insightful)
..as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.
1. Realize you're a drug dealer. People come to you for a fix of that drug. Not a shot of politics. Not a chaser of liberalism. Just the puro.
2. Realize there are other drug dealers. Namely me, myself, and I, who can make one hell of a cup of coffee for many times less.
3. Realize you're in a Recession. In a Recession, people have plenty of time to make a cup of coffee while looking for the kind of job that supports $8 coffees. If there are no jobs to support $8 coffees, you ain't selling no $8 coffees. Price is your pain. Probably because you promised a barista a living wage without realizing the cost of living shouldn't be tied to a cup of coffee.
Re:Drug Dealers. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Drug Dealers. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Their blonde roast isn't bad.It was developed after Starbucks realized that European clients didn't want burnt coffee and instead preferred a medium roast.
A whole lot of Americans don't like burnt coffee, either...and you're right, the blonde roast is drinkable...but it's rare for most locations to brew more than one pot of it a day - I'm usually stuck with their "Pike Roast" if I go there at any time other than the morning rush.
Meanwhile, I like a lot of milk in my coffee...and they no longer put the milk/half-and-half out for people to pour to their liking...and every time I say "LIGHT...like...legitimately light", it's like the barista is personally billed
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A whole lot of Americans don't like burnt coffee, either...and you're right, the blonde roast is drinkable...but it's rare for most locations to brew more than one pot of it a day -
In civilised parts of the world, that isn't called coffee, it's called other names that are best not repeated in public. the coffee civilised people drink is made on demand by a barista, none of this 'pot' business.
Re:Drug Dealers. (Score:5, Insightful)
4. If only their coffee didn't taste like sieved, week-old diarrhoea
One hesitates to ask how you're apparently familiar with the taste of that...
Nobody goes to Starbucks for coffee (Score:1)
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Why is Conservatism bad? Or Communism? Or Fascism? Or whatever MAGA is this week?
I don't want to hear about any company's latest enlightened hypocrisy on politics. If you make shoes, STFU and make shoes. If you make coffee, STFU and make coffee. If you make guns, STFU and make guns. If you are stupid enough to mistake your corporation for your customer's moral compass you shouldn't be running a corporation, and you are probably losing money for your shareholders.
As for Starbucks, the problem is they
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But some of us do. Our wallet is out most powerful vote. I don't want to buy shoes from a shoemaker that sends his profits to causes that are againist my values.
Your wallet and values were your most powerful vote. Back when companies actually listened to customers.
Today many companies feed consumers, not customers. Consumers don’t pay a dime for the service, as they’re more The Product being sold now. If you want a provider to actually listen and give a shit about consumer opinion now, you better have 100 million wallets behind your voice. Otherwise, kindly fuck off. Your minuscule opinion is irrelevant and meaningless to them now.
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You know, if you guys actually did that it would help solve a lot of your problems. Make it illegal for corporations to make political donations. Slap a $100 / year limit on individual contributions while you're at it.
Re:Drug Dealers. (Score:5, Interesting)
"Shot of liberalism"? You *are* talking about the company that's been fighting against its baristas unionising for years, right?
Re:Drug Dealers. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Shot of liberalism"? You *are* talking about the company that's been fighting against its baristas unionising for years, right?
That really doesn't mean anything. Starbucks is one of those companies that likes social liberalism... because it's a great way to appeal to their prime customer base, which are urban and suburban women between 18-45. Think of it as virtue signaling used for marketing.
BUT... they don't like economic/labor liberalism. This is where companies like Starbucks and Target are free market to the core. In their view, they get the best of both worlds: the growing single female customer market (which is overwhelmingly Left-Liberal), and the Ayn Randian max-capitalism operating model internally.
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But it does mean *something* because part of their brand value took a dive *because* of those widely publicized fights with their baristas.
So it runs counter to his 'needs less liberalism' claim, since the biggest example of them going against liberalism has been a PR problem for them already.
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I don't think you know what "Liberalism" is, because it's epitomized in Free-market-capitalism.
Like the word hackers, media has taken over "liberalism" for its own benefits
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I know this is very non-internet-2026 but let's try to look at this with a teensy bit of nuance?
A company can be
a) against its servers unionizing,
AND
b) deeply liberal politically
This is not mindblowing IRL. It is normal.
I know one political side in the US today is very, very 'purist' in its dogma: "if you do not agree entirely with every jot and tittle of every single radical position, you must be an alt-right-fascist"...you know the old thing we all made fun of Bush Jr's simplistic "with us or against us"
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It may be normal, but it's bad PR for a brand like Starbuck's, and their PR blowback being evidence of what 'getting rid of liberalism' would do to their brand.
They could mandate all-white employees with MAGA themed uniforms and support *all* the traditionally conservative values you could imagine and it would still be a hard sell to win over people that have decided that Starbuck's is 'too woke', but it would chase away all their customers.
Conversely, Chick-fil-a could go full liberal and alienate their c
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It's not just an idiotic viewpoint. It's a carefully cultivated attitude that helps keep the US's two parties dominant and their members obedient.
https://www.theatlantic.com/me... [theatlantic.com]
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A company can be
a) against its servers unionizing,
AND
b) deeply liberal politically
No, they literally can not.
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I'm genuinely curious how you can believe that. Or are you making the No True Scotsman purist argument "if they don't adhere to every detail of the creed, they're not in my religion!"?
The business logic against unionizing servers in a drone, meaningless, replaceable, low skill, high-schooler level job is obvious.
At the same time the company can donate heavily to liberal candidates, have its website constantly promoting/celebrating famous leftists, it can close its shops sympathetically when illegals are be
Re: Drug Dealers. (Score:2)
You seriously need a flowchart to understand that if a company is against its employees having agency they are not liberal?
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So you are being an ideological purist?
They can literally agree with you on EVERY SINGLE ITEM on the progressive-fantasy wishlist, but if they don't want their employees to unionize, in your view "well they're not really liberals then"?
You're not serious, are you?
Do you understand how irrational that is?
Re: Drug Dealers. (Score:2)
"They can literally agree with you on EVERY SINGLE ITEM on the progressive-fantasy wishlist, but if they don't want their employees to unionize"
That's on the fucking wish list, dumbass.
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I apologize if english isn't your primary language, as a native speaker would recognize the "but" in that sentence would mean 'everything on the list but that one'.
Or are you simply confirming my point? That if there are 1000 Progressive Points on the Liberal Wishlist, and they agree to 999 but not that last one, they're not to be considered liberal?
If nothing else, you're epistemologically fascinating.
Or you're just dumb? But I really don't think you are, I think you're so incandescently biased it's impo
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Who said that?
I'm sorry are there other points on the liberal wishlist that would have been better examples?
Or are you one of those people who INSISTS their ideology is "the center" without even the fundamental self-awareness to recognize honestly ones' own biases and where they are in the spectrum of beliefs?
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The particular politics that are causing people to avoid Starbucks are that they don't like unions and have branches in occupied Palestine, supporting the genocidal IDF attack on Gaza.
It also doesn't help that their coffee is disgusting. Even if they weren't doing that stuff, it's so bitter and nasty that I wouldn't drink it either. Their food is crap too.
They aren't unique, many of the big chains have gone to shit lately. Nero was never great but is truly awful now. Costa was always mediocre. I wonder if i
Re: Drug Dealers. (Score:2)
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Sadly they are also operating in the occupied parts of Palestine.
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Sadly they are also operating in the occupied parts of Palestine.
I’m not shocked at the location as much as I’m shocked it’s still operating.
Talk about a way to horrifically cripple your enemy first thing in the morning..
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1) Calling a company that sells coffee "drug dealers" is absurd hyperbole
The drugs part I take issue with is even more the sugar, imo, than the caffeine. (and same for boba shops and Jamba Juice)...
basically nobody should be consuming 90% of what these shops sell even once a week...
(though I'm personally a fan of Starbucks coffee and as a place to walk to or meet up with people)
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1) Calling a company that sells coffee "drug dealers" is absurd hyperbole..
Care to lock your favorite bean sucking friends in a room for a week with nothing but morning water to prove me wrong?
I didn’t think so.
It’s not hard to make a drug user look calm and collected when compared to the coffee junkie that didn’t get their fix. Realize the latter crash out is socially acceptable, as is addicting children.
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Why I go to Starbucks? .... being outside the US, I don't. I simply don't.
It's not good coffee. Most drinks are simply sugar bombs. And baristas that have checked out of caring, simply overheat/not care about the coffee.
This, and the well known tactic of setting up ghost stores to try and force popular local stores out of business mean I'll not venture in to one. (ok, once every two years because my partner needs to pee and its the only thing open. Then I will sample an Espresso or Flat White and be disappo
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Agreed. Starbucks coffee is disgusting. When you've tasted proper coffee in places like Europe or Australia, you can never go back to the Starbucks slop.
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Agreed. Starbucks coffee is disgusting. When you've tasted proper coffee in places like Europe or Australia, you can never go back to the Starbucks slop.
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A bit off base, if you just wanted that coffee fix as cheap as possible and you have no time to do it yourself or wait on a 'barista, then you'll just grab some McDonald's coffee, or whatever stuff is likely at your office or work site.
I've not been a Starbuck's customer, but I guarantee you a narrow focus on being as cheap as possible will never win it for Starbuck's. That 'liberalism' you are disdainful of is a core perceived brand value. It may not always be effective, but they will never 'win' against o
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I go to Starbucks for my green tea; my wife actually likes their espresso better than everything else around. I go for baristas that know my name, are friendly, and get my fix in a reasonable amount of time-- under 5 minutes and I am happy.
I used to occasionally go to a unionized shop when visiting my mom-- but it was so inefficient, impersonal, and in-your-face that I switched to a different one. Starbucks is right IMO to fight the union-- it makes things worse for their customers. The current CEO is howev
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A bit off base, if you just wanted that coffee fix as cheap as possible and you have no time to do it yourself or wait on a 'barista, then you'll just grab some McDonald's coffee, or whatever stuff is likely at your office or work site.
At work there is a coffee grinder and espresso machine where I get to do the whole barista thing myself . Takes longer than a barista, is cheaper than a barista, and often turns out worse because I'm not trained in the art of coffee. Buying the wrong beans (or mixing beans) is an offence that can lead to you beingn fired.
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A bit off base, if you just wanted that coffee fix as cheap as possible and you have no time to do it yourself or wait on a 'barista, then you'll just grab some McDonald's coffee, or whatever stuff is likely at your office or work site.
At work there is a coffee grinder and espresso machine where I get to do the whole barista thing myself . Takes longer than a barista, is cheaper than a barista, and often turns out worse because I'm not trained in the art of coffee. Buying the wrong beans (or mixing beans) is an offence that can lead to you beingn fired.
With arrogance like that at work, I would assume the coffee grinder and espresso machine were installed by HR as a headcount reduction tool.
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For me, coffee is only a medication. I don't get why people pay that much for it instead of just using the office coffee maker. On the go, 7-11 has far better coffee, IMO, and you don't have to pay extra for flavors.
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Price is your pain. Probably because you promised a barista a living wage without realizing the cost of living shouldn't be tied to a cup of coffee.
And, there's the problem. People think that serving customers should be a side job / hustle, when in reality many are lucky to even get that job. Given that we've systematically eliminated every other form of low skill labor in the country. While doing absolutely nothing about the ever increasing numbers of low skilled workers. The irony of the parent's comment in a story about automation invading these roles in an effort to save the company money....
Note, that Starbucks isn't the only fast food joint to
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their liberal stance on social issues, along with their pro worker (compared to other fast food) policies, probably gets them a higher tier of employee for the dollar than they'd get otherwise.
And that probably allows operational efficiencies since they're faster to train, more flexible to changes, more responsive to customer needs and complaints etc.
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Not a chaser of liberalism.
every time i have visited starbucks, the person has taken my order efficiently so they could move on to the next customer or task. the person serving calls my name and moves on to the next order. no politics involved, particularly liberalism.
i have a question, what are you yammering on about? seriously, what the f*ck are you talking about?
you might want to go outside and touch grass or make a friend. you know, get a life.
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..as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.
1. Realize you're a drug dealer. People come to you for a fix of that drug. Not a shot of politics. Not a chaser of liberalism. Just the puro.
2. Realize there are other drug dealers. Namely me, myself, and I, who can make one hell of a cup of coffee for many times less.
3. Realize you're in a Recession. In a Recession, people have plenty of time to make a cup of coffee while looking for the kind of job that supports $8 coffees. If there are no jobs to support $8 coffees, you ain't selling no $8 coffees. Price is your pain. Probably because you promised a barista a living wage without realizing the cost of living shouldn't be tied to a cup of coffee.
Here's the thing about drugs son,
When I buy drugs, I don't want shit drugs. I'm not some strung out addict, I can afford decent drugs. It's the same with coffee, when I want a coffee I want something remotely decent and when I order a coffee at a cafe I want something at least on par with what I can make at home with my sub £200 espresso machine. Hence whenever I go to a Costa, I order and iced chocolate. Starbucks doesn't have a "coffee flavoured" free iced chocolate.
Robots can't be worse than ATL Airport baristas (Score:2)
Worst coffee I ever had was at the Starbucks in the airport in Atlanta. That's saying something, since I've traveled in almost 40 states and a dozen foreign countries. Generally fast food places can serve a reliable, if mediocre, product. I don't know what they did but it was foul.
If fast food chains are anything to go by... (Score:2)
I'd say they have this backwards. If I'm using the drive-thru, I prefer talking to a person, since it's inconvenient sticking one's hand out of the car to select the choices. If otoh, I'm in the restaurant, I prefer the kiosks, where I customize my orders very finely, pay for it there and just wait for it. The only thing the employees have to do, aside from cooking, is to bring me the order
I think that Starbucks' reputation for just feeding expensive and more bitter coffee is finally catching up w/ th
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I prefer not to touch the screen that 100 other people who don't wash their hands properly have been poking, right before I handle my food and drink.
Some places have a QR code you scan and then use your own device to order. That's okay, as long as it works with Firefox and uBlock, no 3rd party cookies.
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I prefer not to touch the screen that 100 other people who don't wash their hands properly have been poking, right before I handle my food and drink.
The trick is to lick the screen clean of contaminants before you put your fingers on it.
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I actually saw some guy take his finger out of his ear, lick it, and then touch the screen.
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Thank you in advance for never mentioning that again.
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I presume that they mean voice ordering using LLM technology, so no kiosk. They think drive-through because the customer isn't getting "face time" with a person anyway, just a disembodied voice on a speaker.
Problem being that multiple places have tried it, and found out that the LLM mistakes are annoying to everyone and even when working the not-quite-natural text to speech is off putting, and just knowing it's a vocal chat bot even without being able to otherwise tell is enough to make people think poorly
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Tipping (Score:3, Funny)
Donâ(TM)t forget to tip your robot servers!
Re:Tipping (Score:4, Funny)
Fortunately, this is not difficult, since most robots have difficulty keeping their balance.
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Deja vu (Score:2)
... testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory ...
Wow - the first chapter of Marshall Brain's "Manna" was both eerily and specifically prescient: https://marshallbrain.com/mann... [marshallbrain.com]
Since it seems that we're firmly on the path of his story, I recommend the entire work to anyone who is interested. It offers two logical possible outcomes. One is bleak and dystopian, and the other is wonderful and utopian.
The wonder of it is that we could go either way, or even both ways. If we manage to handle global warming, then something like the paradise which Brain posit
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It offers two logical possible outcomes.
Well, no, depressingly, it offers one plausible outcome and one highly flawed 'utopia' that isn't very consistent.
So in his utopia, you might have think a community came together to make a socialist society, but no, it's some miraculously benevolent rich dude who only managed to pull it off because a bunch of people sent him their money as an almost 'lottery ticket' to get into this society. Given the way rich people work, in practice you'd have had a dozen billionaires all promising to 'kickstart' this ut
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All valid points, and I had (perhaps conveniently) forgotten about the brain implant thing in the time since I last read it. I'm usually a pretty critical guy, but I guess this time around I had consumed the Kool-Aid, so thanks for your critical analysis.
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Yeah, I was inclined to dig the post-scarcity angle, but Manna just rubbed me the wrong way.
I think in part because the author wanted to have a single character experience both halves of the coin, which means necessarily it has to be a world where not everyone gets to participate in the socialist approach, but somehow the protagonist could. So the contortions he did fell back on capitalistic mechanisms. To his credit, to make up for it, there was an implication that as the socialist approach scaled up, it
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I think in part because the author wanted to have a single character experience both halves of the coin, which means necessarily it has to be a world where not everyone gets to participate in the socialist approach, but somehow the protagonist could.
True. But also, it's unlikely that what I think of as the "unrestrained capitalist" approach would suddenly give way to the socialist approach. There would probably be a longish transition period, and it makes sense that some parts of the world would get there well before other parts. (I say "unrestrained capitalist" because I'm not against capitalism per se. I'm against unfettered, unrestrained capitalism. That's a whole other discussion: I see similarities between behaviour and management of electrical sy
Such a disconnect... (Score:3)
"We lost our focus because we got a little too distracted on efficiency and technology, and lost, I think, our focus on experience, customer and connection," he said.
Ok, that sounds like you accept you've tried to 'business and tech' away a decent customer experience, and that you are going to circle back to more customer friendly territory..
rstricter uniforms for staff and rules that bar people from using the bathroom without a purchase.
Umm... that makes you think the customers are going to think you have a *nicer* connection to them and their community?
The company is trialling an AI-powered chatbot, which can help match drinks with customer moods
Ok, this is *exactly* how you said you were already screwing up, so you want to double down?
At drive-throughs, Starbucks is testing a system to process orders
Again, this sounds like more doubling down on the 'tech' you said had distracted and diminished the customer experience?
Fine, but surely there's something consistent with what you claimed to do...
To improve the vibes, staff were urged to return to writing customer names on cups by hand.
Yeah, that'll fix your problems...
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The company is trialling an AI-powered chatbot, which can help match drinks with customer moods
The day I need a computer to tell me what kind of coffee I'm supposed to feel like drinking, I'll stop drinking coffee.
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Robots were being used, but instead of using robots to do the drudgework of cleaning, prepping, and fairly mechanistically brewing coffee, and having a human up front interacting with customers, instead we had a human
Times Have Changed (Score:3)
My local Starbucks used to be a warm, inviting, wood-toned mecca for caffeine-adled worker-bees and wanna-bees. The recent remodelling makes it look alot more like a McDonalds. I don't know how I'm going to feel when I walk in a see Command Data bending Rosie the Robot over the expresso machine.
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You are 100% correct. I don't visit them anymore but the old Starbucks location was definitely nicer to sit in. Now the ceiling is twice as high and it's an open cube of grey walls and uncomfortable furniture.
Before https://preview.redd.it/the-ea... [preview.redd.it]
After https://www.reddit.com/r/starb... [reddit.com]
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...so didn't get what people got by picking those places, as opposed to, say, libraries.
Coffee. They got coffee.
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My favourite library has a local coffee shop in it.
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My local Starbucks used to be a warm, inviting, wood-toned mecca for caffeine-adled worker-bees and wanna-bees. The recent remodelling makes it look alot more like a McDonalds. I don't know how I'm going to feel when I walk in a see Commander Data bending Rosie the Robot over the expresso machine.
Here's the thing about robots... they're not necessarily going to be Androids. An android is a robot or automaton in humanoid from (from the greek Andro, meaning man, also where we get terms like androgynous which combines the prefix for woman, gyno, so a female android should be called a gynoid).
But I digress, Rosie the Robot in this scenario will be the espresso machine. A lot of coffee chains already have swapped out the old manual machines for automatic ones because ultimately, if you care about good
The actual reasons I'll never go to Starbucks? (Score:1)
1. They are anti-union / treat their workers poorly.
2. There are non-corporate, local options that are higher quality and that treat their workers better.
3. Their coffee sucks. Starbucks was "good" coffee in the 2000s because I was coming from drinking Maxwell House.
It's also hilarious that they cite the CEO as responsible for "turning around Chipotle" when Chipotle fucking sucks now.
I'm fine with it (Score:1)
Fire them all. Replace with Robots. If Starbucks just sells coffee, I might return as a customer.
(Although not sure why I'd abandon the coffee shops that I've meanwhile patronized who never did get distracted from, you know, serving coffee....)
The moment Starbucks employees said "we stand with Hamas" as far as I'm concerned I hope they all have the opportunity to immediately move to Gaza and start helping with the rebuilding of terror-tunnels, rocket factories, and hostage-cells. I problems with things I
Maybe make better coffee? (Score:2)
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EVERY time I go to the USA I stop drinking coffee, I am sorry, but I have never found a place that make a decent coffee, and the couple of times I was desperate enough to try a Starbucks it got thrown away after 1 sip.
Nope (Score:2)
help baristas recall recipes
Because part of the culture of coffee shops is to bark instructions at the barrista as to the exact way to make _your_ personal latte*. There are no such things as standard recipies.
*I take my coffee black. Straight out of the pot. I don't even have to say anything. They see my car pull up and have my morning coffee ready when I approach the counter. No need to even fully wake up.
Robots? (Score:2)
Well, they won't be getting tattoos or rings in their noses. And a chrome dome will be a welcome change from the blue, green and pink.
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Well, they won't be getting tattoos or rings in their noses. And a chrome dome will be a welcome change from the blue, green and pink.
I've heard of homophobes, but this is the first time I've heard of a hairophobe. Don't be scared, that's not a natural color, they did it with dye.
I don't have a difficult order (Score:2)
Super (Score:2)
Correction (Score:2)
Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Turnaround in Customers
" Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits."
Starbucks Bets on Robots To Brew a Reduction in Staffing to Boost Profits
So, a glorified coffee vending machine? (Score:2)
And they'll still want $8 per drink, of course.
Robots? (Score:1)
But oleato!?! (Score:2)
hard to notice when you're not looking (Score:1)
starbucks is too stupid to notice that the reason their profits are flagging is that the proletariat no longer has any money
\o/ (Score:1)
What are they going to do when the robots start to unionise?
We have already robotized coffee machines (Score:2)
Having a sanitized and robotized experience means that is going to be not to different to go in a vending machine, and expecting to pay less for it than in a regular bar.
And except if the Starbucks is the only one in the area, there are always alternatives.