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Meet Pepper, the humanoid robot Nestlé plans to use to sell its Nescafé coffee machines in home appliance stores across Japan. According to a press release, the company is using robots instead of humans in an "effort to enhance brand-engagement with consumers." Pepper is apparently the first robot in the world that can "read and respond to human emotion." And yet, Nestlé is using the technology to sell coffee machines.
Pepper will read customers' facial expressions and tones of voice to "analyze how they are feeling" and to "engage in conversation" in order to sell Nescafé Dolce Gusto and Nescafé Gold Blend Barista coffee machines.
Nestlé will roll out the robot in 20 stores this December and has plans to unleash its coffee-machine-selling bot army in 1,000 stores in Japan by the end of 2015. Hopefully Pepper is more adept than Nextage, its coffee-robot brethren from Nespresso. Go watch a video of Pepper in action below:
