Starbucks Advances Its AI Support For Order Anticipation
You’ve got to hand it to Starbucks, you really do; these guys are constantly innovating on a scale that would blow just about anyone’s mind. It’s bringing out a whole new program using the cloud-based Digital Flywheel system, one that will be able to predict what rewards members are going to order, and it should be in place by this fall.
Just in time for cider season, it’s hoped, Starbucks will be able to bring out this new AI platform, which will be set to monitor orders for rewards programs and offer up not only better supply ordering, but also new potential suggestions for similar beverages that might be new to the customer, but just as well received.
Starbucks is planning to target this to the nines, including being able to differentiate between weather patterns. A customer’s order when it’s raining might be different from a sunny day, and the system will be able to tell the difference. There are even provisions made for weekday and weekend options, specific holidays, or even a user’s birthday.
Altimeter analyst and futurist Brian Solis commented “Starbucks is one of the best companies in the world that connects brand, user and consumer experience between digital, mobile and the real world. They are still pushing forward, rolling out their Digital Flywheel strategy to be more dynamic and to further integrate digital and real world.”
While this is a great idea and all, and will likely help give Starbucks patrons a better set of possibilities in ordering, I can’t help but think that Starbucks is actively fixing the wrong problem. The company has already seen huge amounts of mobile ordering, so much so that something like one dollar in three now is mobile-related. What is Starbucks doing on the actual supply side of things? While it’s improving its ordering processes to within an inch of their very lives, what is it doing to actually get the coffee into the customers’ hands?
Starbucks’ commitment to growth is excellent, but it needs to shore up the real-world side of things too. As long as orders are being abandoned because they can’t be fulfilled in a timely fashion, no amount of AI or mobile systems will fix the real problem.