The exclusive inside story of how a promising AI system flamed out, as told by dozens of Starbucks employees and the tech startup behind it. Plus, what leaders everywhere should learn from the experience.
Last fall, Carl Addison showed his Starbucks coworkers a magic trick.
As a shift supervisor at his Seattle-area café, he was responsible for the store’s twice-a-week inventory count. Starbucks had introduced a new AI tool in September to automate the process. Called Automated Counting, it used an iPad camera to identify and tally items on the storage shelves, turning an hour-long job into one that was supposed to take as little as 10 to 12 minutes.
The exclusive inside story of how a promising AI system flamed out, as told by dozens of Starbucks employees and the tech startup behind it. Plus, what leaders everywhere should learn from the experience.
Last fall, Carl Addison showed his Starbucks coworkers a magic trick.As a shift supervisor at his Seattle-area café, he was responsible for the store’s twice-a-week inventory count. Starbucks had introduced a new AI tool in September to automate the process. Called Automated Counting, it used an iPad camera to identify and tally items on the storage shelves, turning an hour-long job into one that was supposed to take as little as 10 to 12 minutes. Design
