New KFC Restaurant Run Entirely by Robots

Nick Bernabe

Colonel Sanders is raising a robot army to serve fried chicken at a restaurant near you. KFC’s first automated restaurant, called Original+, went live in Shanghai on April 25th, complete with an artificially intelligent robot manager named “Du Mi” who works at the front counter.

According to Chinese news outlet Sohu, “‘Du Mi’ marks the first commercial use of artificial intelligence in the fast food industry. The artificial intelligence robot was launched by China’s leading Web services company Baidu during its World Conference in 2015.”

KFC hopes that the hip new automated restaurant will attract young customers with its free wireless phone charging stations and human-less service.

But it’s not just KFC, and it’s not just China where automation, robots, and artificial intelligence is taking the place of human workers. If and when these automated restaurants gain traction in places like China, they are sure to be implemented in the U.S. as well. In fact, they already are — though to a lesser extent, for now. McDonald’s and other food chains are experimenting with digital kiosks similar to the self-checkout machines already found in many grocery stores.

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