Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol told staff that the coffee shop will no longer use an AI inventory program after trying it for nine months.
This ‘Automatic Counting’ software, developed with NomadGo, is an AI-powered tool that is supposed to help in inventory tracking. The tool, which was only released in 2025, was designed to count milk and syrups, in theory, automating and optimizing an easy task.
However, the AI-powered tool reportedly mislabeled and miscounted items, would mix up similar milk types and sometimes skip counting items entirely.
Funny enough, the Starbucks video that first introduced this new AI tool actually shows it missing a bottle of syrup.
Reuters reports that staff will need to go back to manually counting inventory. “Beverage components and milk will now be counted the same way you count other inventory categories in your coffeehouse,” read an internal company newsletter.
Header image credit: Shutterstock
Source: Reuters
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