Starbucks reveals big change for baristas, customers
Starbucks has a surprising partner to help make it easier to get your coffee.
Mentioning technology in the fast food industry may conjure images of faceless kiosks passing your McDonald's order back to a machine that flips burgers.
The promise of this future has its obvious advantages.
It's nearly impossible for a computer to make a mistake in your order or forget a certain modification or food allergy.
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Secondly, your fast food orders will be uniform. You won't get a Chipotle burrito bowl with too little protein or too much sour cream because a robot will have premeasured all of those ingredients.
Hate waiting 10 minutes in line during the lunch rush to order your food and then another 10 minutes to receive your food?
Well, automated order taking and food making will cut down on customer wait times immensely. The robots don't take breaks and don't get tired.
In 2023, McDonald's debuted its first restaurant primarily staffed by robotics in Fort Worth, Texas. The machines handled almost everything, from taking orders to “manning“ the fries.
While that dining utopia is still years away, restaurants are moving towards that future now, but the advances are incremental.
Starbucks just unveiled its latest technological breakthrough with artificial intelligence, but don't worry, your favorite barista isn't going anywhere, for now. 
Starbucks brings in Microsoft Azure, OpenAI assistant for baristas
This week (June 10), Starbucks (SBUX) showed off a generative artificial intelligence assistant created with Microsoft Azure's OpenAI platform.
Starbucks will be rolling out its “Green Dot Assist” program at 35 of its more than 17,000 North American locations in June with a goal of rolling out the platform across the U.S. and Canada by the fall.
Starbucks unveiled the plan to more than 14,000 store managers at its Leadership Experience conference in Las Vegas on June 10.
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“It’s just another example of how innovation technology is coming into service of our partners and making sure that we’re doing all we can to simplify the operations, make their jobs just a little bit easier, maybe a little bit more fun, so that they can do what they do best,” Starbucks Chief Technology Officer Deb Hall Lefevre told CNBC.
Starbucks baristas will have a tablet behind the counter equipped with Green Dot Assistant to get answers to any questions they may have, including how to make a particular drink or how to troubleshoot equipment errors.
Through the new program, the workers will have access to an employee handbook, a maintenance worker, and a trained veteran barista at their beck and call.
Starbucks plans to expand the program in the future so that it can automatically generate an IT ticket for equipment issues and generate staffing suggestions when needed.
Starbucks looks to recover from dismal quarter
While Starbucks is looking to bolster its future through technology, its recent past should cause some concern.
In the second quarter, Starbucks saw comparable store sales fall by 1% year over year while transactions dropped 4% in the quarter.
Starbucks' operating income in the quarter plummeted 35%.
Amid the downturn, CEO Brian Niccol urged Starbucks to focus on being a community coffeehouse.
“My optimism has turned into confidence that our Back to Starbucks plan is the right strategy to turn the business around and to unlock opportunities ahead,” said Niccol during an earnings call in April.
The plan is focused on improving the customer experience through recent changes such as delivering orders to customers in “four minutes or less,” updating store designs, and serving coffee in ceramic mugs for customers who want to sit inside stores.
Green Dot Assist could help the company achieve that goal.
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