This highly capable AI-powered robot barista is set to debut at a San Jose café
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- An AI-powered humanoid robot barista that can make roughly 100 different types of coffee and cocktail drinks is about to make its debut in a new San Jose coffee shop.
Dan Dang is the owner of NCM Café located in North San Jose. NCM stands for "networking, community and mindset."
Dang says the barista is the first of its kind in Santa Clara County.
"It's more data coming to him so he's learning every day, so he becomes smarter, and smarter every day," Dang said. "He's free, he's not controlled by anything, you can ask him about anything."
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The tech company behind it is Richtech Robotics, headquartered in Las Vegas.
President Matt Casella said they're a hospitality focused robotics and automation company.
"Really that's something that I think is so powerful in this expansion of AI and coupling AI with robotics is really the training that's being done, the simulations you're able to run robots through to be able to train them, program them for a variety of new tasks," Casella said.
Casella said its name is Adam and was first introduced at CES in 2023. It can listen, dance, and has facial recognition, so it can recognize repeat customers.
"It carries it one step further, it's not just the automation of the task, it's really about the experience," Casella said.
On Wednesday, Richtech Robotics announced they're expanding not only in Nevada, but in the Bay Area. They signed a lease for a new office in Newark.
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"There's a lot of robots that are used at Amazon, you know, to send you your package by 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, but the general public never sees those robots," Casella said. "Our robots are out there, they're in the world working."
Adam can speak four different languages. At NCM Café, they've named it C.
Dang has a background in the construction business and hopes NCM Café will bring in different groups. Nonprofit organizations are allowed to hold evening events there for free.
"We want to attract the startups, small businesses, when you start by yourself, you're kind of by yourself," he said. "Or first homebuyers, they don't know anything about the market, they don't know what's going on, they're kind of afraid. Just come talk to us- we've been in the business for a long time. So that's the kind of people we want to gather together."
NCM Café will hold their grand opening on Saturday.
