Currently, there are robots on the market capable of taking over some of the tasks previously performed by humans, and more business owners are looking in this direction. First and foremost, there are robots as waiters, consultants, mail carriers, and telepresence robots. All these categories of devices are already available for purchase to anyone interested, ranging in price from $1,000 to $15,000. Of course, there are higher price tags as well, but here we'll focus on the most affordable segment of the market.
Waiter Robots
Let's start with the increasingly popular waiter robots. To be honest, this is not the most accurate name since most robots do not handle all the functions of a human waiter. The device performs the role of a smart cart, transporting the user's order to the appropriate table. Placing the order on trays and selecting the table for which the order is intended will still be the responsibility of the restaurant staff.
Smart Carts
Placing the order from the trays onto the table will also have to be done by a human. This could be the customer themselves, for example, in fast-food restaurants, or a human waiter in more upscale establishments. With this workflow, the waiter won't need to go to the order delivery area, and they will primarily focus on interacting with the guests, while the robots take care of the back-and-forth tasks.
There are also more humanoid-looking waiter robots, but most of them do not differ significantly in functionality and are capable of holding trays or tablets. In restaurants where guests collect their own orders from a tray on a robot-cart, such robots can be used to take orders, thus fully automating the customer interaction process. The price of such devices starts from $1,200 for the simplest carts and goes up to $15,000 for a human-like model with a large tablet.
