Robot barista costs the same as a coffee a day for nearly 128 years

Craving the perfect caffeinated beverage? Look no further than ADAM, a robot barista who can make the ultimate cup of coffee – for £140,000.

The two-armed robot is currently on display at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, the largest consumer tech conference in the world.

Although a returning visitor to CES, this year ADAM has a new skill – chatting to customers and telling jokes, thanks to generative AI, ChatGPT-style.

However, is the banter worth six figures? The cost is equivalent to a coffee every day for around 128 years, so it may be hard to argue it’s a value investment.

Of course, ADAM was designed not with homeowners in mind but coffee shops – or even bars.

Created by Richtech Robotics, ADAM can take also orders and make a wide range of drinks. Above all, he never gets tired.

‘He is a barista robot in this case but really, he can make a lot of different beverages, from boba tea, coffee, ice lattes, iced tea to even whiskey shots and cocktails,’ said Phil Zheng, Richtech Robotics chief operating officer.

‘He can (be) applied to almost every single kind of beverage making application. And here you can see him filling up ice, washing out the cups, getting milk, and then brewing the coffee and then making, in this case, a foamy hazelnut latte,’ he added, as ADAM made coffees behind him on the show floor of CES 2024.

And he’s no one-trick robot. Aside from making coffee and drinks, ADAM can also prepare food. To do this, ADAM uses a combination of robotic arms, AI, cameras and facial recognition software.

‘It’s a dual arm robot,’ said Zheng. ‘You have AI cameras in front for both vision as well as depth sensing. So, we have several different types of cameras in there.

‘The entire system is powered by the internal power supply that’s actually in the body of the robot. And then you have structures, speaker set top as well as cameras in a few places around the system as well.

‘Adam is designed to be that producing robot that can make and manufacture the food, not just help clean or deliver, but actually be the business itself,” he added.

And what do ADAM’s customers think of his barista skills?

‘It’s great,’ said Jon Gregory, a 37-year-old tech enthusiast from Baltimore. ‘This is the hazelnut latte. The robot made it all on its own. It tastes great. Very foamy, very cold. It’s really nice.’

Arun Prasad, a 38-year-old tech enthusiast from Detroit, added: ‘I think it’s fantastic. I don’t think there’s any difference what a human would have done. It tastes exactly the same. But, I think the coffee is fantastic.’

But before baristas across the globe panic too much, there is one more important fact to share.

ADAM still needs a human to refill his milk supplies.

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