Coffee companies are going all in on automation. We’re told that it improves efficiency, cuts costs, and yields a better product. But what does it mean for the baristas whose labour these automations displace?
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Coffee companies are going all in on automation. We’re told that it improves efficiency, cuts costs, and yields a better product. But what does it mean for the baristas whose labour these automations displace?
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“The baristas to me looked like factory workers. They were moving cups around and pushing buttons, which made me think, ‘I bet we can build a product that automates these boring tasks way more efficiently’”.
This is the story that Henry Hu told CNBC in 2018 about the founding of his company, Cafe X. After a long wait in an airport coffee shop line, he was inspired to create a “friendly robotic barista”, as Cafe X’s website puts it. Hu, a college dropout, built the prototype in a garage with a couple of friends. So far, so Silicon Valley.
Still, Cafe X is no scrappy startup: It was funded by a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship, and later raised $7 million in funding from the Thiel Foundation and angel investor Jason Calacanis, among others. (Peter Thiel is a far-right billionaire investor who founded PayPal and the surveillance company Palantir.) Cafe X has now opened more than a dozen locations around the United States and abroad, and has partnered with specialty roasters such as Intelligentsia, Equator, and Onyx.
Cafe X predictably received a lot of positive press around its launch, and while some involved in its design tried to downplay the robot’s “barista-killing” characterisation, Calacanis was blunt: “The idea of humans making coffee for 10 hours a day is as crazy in 2018 as a tollbooth collector sitting in a metal box on a freeway”, he told CNBC. Even when Cafe X closed several downtown San Francisco branches in 2020—Hu said the company was pivoting to focus on airports—SFGate still managed to praise its low prices, which were “pretty much unheard of in this overpriced city. Oh, and you don’t have to tip robots”.
While robot baristas are an outlier, media coverage typically frames automation in coffee as an undisputed positive. We’re told that it improves efficiency and consistency, cuts costs, and yields a better—and speedier—product for the customer. Beyond the robot baristas, automation has also crept into the industry in less obvious forms: Superautomatic espresso machines and automated milk frothers, the sales pitch goes, allow cafes to increase productivity and serve more drinks without compromising quality.
Crucially, the pro-automation story continues, baristas will not be replaced. On the contrary, the barista’s role will merely evolve towards customer service: having to focus less on making drinks means they can engage in “meaningful and genuine conversations with customers”, as one article put it.
Coffee automation is a nuanced subject, and certain tools do offer genuine benefits to baristas—particularly in the reduction of workplace injuries and strain. But when a role shifts from one that is highly skilled and takes years to master to one that merely involves pressing a few buttons and engaging with customers, then the salary incentives also change.
How can a barista demand a raise when they can easily be replaced by a machine? Why would a company want to pay above minimum wage when it doesn’t have to? And what does it mean to be a barista in an increasingly automated industry?
Coffee technology is constantly evolving. Espresso grinders used to be simple, manual, and unreliable; now they’re stuffed full of electronics, cost as much as a small car, and can dose coffee with frankly remarkable accuracy. Likewise, coffee roasters were once little more than revolving drums with fire underneath. Now, they’re souped-up computers that turn out perfect coffee at the touch of a button (and are often as costly as a small house).
Coffee shops survive on volume, so it’s little wonder that companies would continuously look for ways to increase productivity. Take Starbucks: In the 1990s, the burgeoning chain worked with La Marzocco espresso machines before switching to Thermoplan superautomatic machines as it grew. While the change led to greater speed and efficiency, ex-CEO Howard Schultz lamented the lost “romance and theatre” of the previous setup in a leaked 2007 memo.
For a while, the independent specialty coffee sector largely avoided making such moves. Trish Rothgeb, a coffee professional who defined coffee’s “third wave” in 2002, specifically noted that it was “a reaction to those who want to automate and homogenize Specialty Coffee”. In the sector’s early days, it was marked by a celebration of craft and skill, a reverence for baristas’ expertise, and an emphasis on the coffee shop experience.
Things have changed. In recent years, the specialty industry has increasingly prioritised efficiency. In addition to more automated espresso equipment, the rise of ready-to-drink canned coffee, single-serve capsules, and specialty instant all point to a shift towards a quick-service ethos.
There’s a reason for that change: Customers, in coffee and everywhere else, crave convenience above all else. They will even pay extra for it. The success of specialty-adjacent chains such as Luckin Coffee and Blank Street Coffee, both of which follow a quick-service, automation-heavy model, shows that this approach can pay off.
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In general, coffee industry media is pro-automation. (Sprudge is a notable exception.) Myriad articles from the past few years extol the benefits of automation, including improved workflow, extraction, and “customer engagement”. These pieces—often taking the form of undeclared sponsored posts—feature quotes from espresso machine company executives, or from the famous baristas who double as brand ambassadors for said companies.
One of the main arguments such articles make is that automation frees up baristas to concentrate on customer service. “Technology and automation have removed many of the physical aspects of the role, meaning baristas can make coffee faster and improve quality, while also serving people better”, Dale Harris, a World Barista Champion and ambassador for the automated coffee machine manufacturer Eversys, told Global Coffee Report in 2024. “I love that machines like Eversys’ free up baristas from the physical act and being hidden behind a machine, and give them the freedom to spend more time with customers.”
Another pro-automation argument is that the technology cuts costs for coffee shops. It’s true that automated grinding or milk dispensing reduces waste, which is obviously a good thing. But automation also saves on other costs, like training. Why bother spending the time and expense to fully train a barista when all they need to do is push a couple of buttons?
A 2022 article in New Ground Magazine makes both these arguments. Automation “could move [the barista role] from being more of a craft industry to more of a service industry”, Demian Estevez, owner of Mojo Coffee House in New Orleans, told the publication. “Less work will need to be done behind the bar and more focus will be on customers”.
Additionally, Estevez said, “Baristas [who use automation] won’t have to go through as much training, which can be costly”. (It’s worth noting that New Ground Magazine is published by a holding company that owns several automated espresso machine brands.)
I am not inherently anti-automation. As in my article on generative AI in coffee, I believe that there are specific cases where automation can offer genuine utility. For example, automatic tamping machines are amazing tools that can help baristas avoid the dreaded repetitive strain injury known as “barista wrist”. Superautomatic machines, meanwhile, can allow restaurants and hotels to serve consistently better-tasting coffee to their guests.
My issue isn’t with the tools themselves. Rather, it’s with the broader impact of industry-wide automation. The push for more automation risks further devaluing the role of the barista—a job that is already widely, and wrongly, considered unskilled—and putting downward pressure on wages.
For all the talk of automated technology merely assisting, not replacing baristas, the reality is that labour cost savings are a big part of the pitch. A blog post from the robot coffee company Ceres notes that “introducing robot baristas represents an opportunity to reduce labor costs and increase profitability. Hiring and training skilled baristas can be expensive, and labor costs can quickly increase, especially in regions with higher minimum wages”.
Similarly, an article in Restaurant Business Online, sponsored by Franke Coffee Systems, says the quiet part out loud: It explains that “automated coffee solutions ensure that not only are fewer baristas required per shift, the process of training staff to produce high quality beverages is greatly reduced, saving operators hours in training labor, all while freeing staff up to focus more on the guest”. Ah yes, there’s that talk of “freeing” workers from their jobs again.
The most explicit pitch comes from the VC-backed Octane Coffee, a completely automated, barista-less drive-through company. Last month, Octane’s CEO Adrian Deasy told Restaurant Technology News that his labour costs were half that of a regular drive-through. He was also, understandably, very bullish on the future of automation: “It’s already hard to find labor for current restaurants and coffee shops ... Automation IS a long-term solution, and we’ll see more adoption as this type of equipment goes mainstream”.
Research has shown that automation has a direct downward impact on wages. In 2022, economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo found that “a significant portion of the rise in U.S. wage inequality over the last four decades has been driven by automation”. In a 2020 paper, the economist Dagobert Brito acknowledged that, while automation doesn’t necessarily directly result in job losses, it can suppress wages and increase inequality.
What happens, Brito explained, is that automation does replace some workers, but those workers find new jobs created as part of an expanding economy driven by automation. The new jobs, however, tend to be lower-paid. Other workers see elements of their roles become automated, which doesn’t result in complete replacement but means fewer employees are needed to fulfil those roles.
Brito uses the example of a librarian, but you could just as easily substitute a barista. Librarians must complete a range of tasks during their day, he wrote. “Some, but not all, of these tasks can be automated. It does not seem possible to automate all the tasks performed by a librarian, but it is possible to reduce the number of librarians needed by automating some of the tasks a librarian performs”.
Baristas are, you won’t be surprised to learn, already ridiculously underpaid. Indeed puts the average wage in the United States at $15.74 before tips, while in the United Kingdom it’s £12.98. For comparison, the living wage in Michigan, according to MIT, is $20.97 for a single adult. In Virginia, it’s $25.65. The U.K.’s “real living wage” is currently £13.45 (£14.80 in London).
If even experienced baristas often don’t make enough to live, what happens when increased automation further undercuts and devalues their labour?
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Most of the articles concerning automation in the coffee industry feature quotes from marketers, company executives, or brand ambassadors. Very seldom do we hear from the actual people on the frontlines of this technological shift. So I asked some.
“I am pro-automation only when it comes to things that allow a barista to do their job better or safer”, says Austin Nakamura, a barista in New York City, referencing the Puqpress automatic tamper as an example. In general, Nakamura says “it depends on the kind of automation, and also what you consider customer service. Something that makes your job easier to do does help, but something that removes craft, or removes intention from the process, I think diminishes the ‘experience’”.
Others gave similarly nuanced takes. Automation “can help make a coffee bar both economically viable to exist in the first place, but also not a living hell for places that can only realistically have one person at a time at work due to demand of the local area,” says Andreas Harestad, a barista in Norway.
Harestad notes the possible downsides, like incentivising staffing cuts or homogenising product offerings, but also says, “I don’t think a robot could ever give satisfying advice on which coffee to pick from a large pourover menu and have engaging conversations about coffee, which I know is one of the primary reasons why a lot of people come to our shops to begin with”.
Some baristas have also complained that the automated tools that were meant to make their jobs easier have instead caused more strain. One of the reasons for the union drive that began at Blank Street Coffee in 2022 was its automated espresso machines, which were consistently faulty and hard to fix. As Juliana LaVita, a former Blank Street barista, told me in 2024, “Looking back, it seemed like another way to cut corners by only staffing one person at a time”.
Like Harestad, Brit Alexandria Sims, a barista and blogger, is unconcerned about the prospect of losing their job to a robot, noting the high up-front costs and lack of technician availability. “And, while the novelty is cool, I don’t think a lot of customers would like it in the long run”, they tell me. Automation more broadly, like the Puqpress, should only be thought of as a complement to a barista’s abilities. “Machines break down. I don’t think automation should ever replace real knowledge and coffee skill”.
Fionn Pooler
It’s probably fair to say that robots are not going to replace baristas at scale. At least, not anytime soon. They’re too expensive, for one thing—CNBC reported the cost of a single Cafe X robot was $25,000 in 2018. But also, as Ashley Rodriguez wrote in a 2023 Boss Barista piece, the majority of customers simply don’t seem to want coffee from a robot. People who visit coffee shops on a regular basis are going there for more than just the beverage, she argued; good coffee is important, but so is the experience.
Interestingly, Starbucks has also come to this realisation, albeit belatedly. After chasing the quick-service, convenience-focused model for several years, and losing lots of money in the process, the coffee giant launched a campaign announcing a “return” to its former ways.
Earlier this year, Starbucks said that it was scaling back its automated Siren Craft System, and would hire more baristas. “What we’re discovering is the equipment doesn’t solve the customer experience that we need to provide, but rather staffing the stores and deploying with this technology behind it does,” CEO Brian Niccol told CBS News.
Of course, Starbucks isn’t some labour champion: The company’s relationship with its unionised workers is frosty, to say the least, and it is rolling out a generative AI “barista assistant” as I write this. But if the company that arguably spearheaded the push towards modern coffee automation is now rethinking that strategy, then the rest of the industry would do well to pay attention.
There is a place for automation in coffee: It can be a reasonable option to help elevate the offerings at airport or hospital kiosks, in service station vending machines, or at hotels and restaurants. That’s what the barista robot companies are targeting—for now. Whether the infiltration of automation stops there—and how baristas’ work will change accordingly—remains to be seen.
It’s worth remembering that baristas are the face of the coffee industry. They are the ones who synthesise all the hard work undertaken by so many people along the coffee value chain and ultimately present it to the customer. A willingness to automate that away in the name of consistency, speed, or cost savings doesn’t just dilute the barista’s role and worth—it feels like a devaluation of coffee itself.
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