TIGARD, Ore. — Nestled near the entrance to Macy's inside Washington Square Mall lives Artly Coffee, robotic arms crafting latte and coffee drinks for customers.
"Coffee machines got pretty advanced but this is like next level,” said Ayman Elkholy. “This is like artisan coffee and it's pretty impressive."
"And amazingly it actually beats Starbucks in quality," said Adam Kovch.
The friendly robot barista opened for business during the holiday season, and it's been getting a lot of buzz.
The process is very simple and similar to a traditional coffee bar. Customers order their drink through a tablet, and the robot hand uses computer vision technology to tell the machine where to go and what to do.
"We as humans really like the idea that something else, something we've created, is doing a task for us," said Kerry Tomlinson, a cyber news reporter with Ampere News.
Tomlinson said this is just the start of what we'll see in the future in terms of robots and artificial intelligence tech in our day-to-day lives.
"They are working on robots that will clean our counters for us and fold our laundry for us,” said Tomlinson. “All these things just sound fascinating and amazing. So yes, robots will be more and more a part of our lives."
Companies like Coca-Cola, Snapchat and Microsoft are some of the few companies already using AI tech for things like customer service. And unfortunately, Tomlinson also believes companies will start to use both AI and robots instead of hiring real people.
“Automation is going to take people's jobs,” said Tomlinson. “Now, hopefully, what's going to happen is that we are going to learn new skills. And the robots will do, and the automation will do the boring stuff that we don't want to do and we will hopefully be able to do more interesting things. That would be the ideal future for automation."
This uptick in tech also comes as more and more employers are having a hard time hiring. Take Starbucks for example, the Pioneer Courthouse Square store in downtown Portland just voted to unionize, making it the 14th union location in the metro area — after employees demanded safety and better pay.
"I worked at Starbucks for 8 years and so I always joked, 'wouldn't it be funny if a robot did end up making your coffee for you?'" said Alex ElIison. "So, it's kind of cool to see that it actually ended up happening."