An Oregon restaurateur who sparked an uproar in her small town when she rented a robot to help her short-staffed servers said artificial intelligence is here to stay in the hospitality industry.
“Plato works 12 hours a day,” Sherry Andrus said of her new server, programmed to take plates of food from the kitchen to their destination table. “He works from 10 in the morning to 10 at night, and he doesn’t need a break. He’s not taking tips. And that’s just the sad reality.”
Small businesses that have incorporated AI are loving the technology, according to survey results released this week, with a majority reporting that AI helped them cut costs and improve efficiency.