Starbucks sets out to "totally re-invent" itself, with digital and NFTs at the heart of the plan

This past spring, Starbucks announced a new, ambitious project to build a digital “third-place.” As explained on the company's blog, “What if Starbucks could create a new, global digital community – a community defined by collaboration, experiences, and shared ownership – all centered around coffee to start, and then perhaps expanded into the many of the areas Starbucks has played in over the years as a coffeehouse; art, music, books and beyond?”. 

Fast forward to three months later and Starbucks' plans for reinvention appear to have significantly expanded. In a recent letter to employees, interim CEO, Howard Schultz, wrote, “Today, we find ourselves in a position where we must modernize and transform the Starbucks experience in our stores and recreate an environment that is relevant, welcoming, and safe, and where we uplift one another with dignity, respect, and kindness.”

During a recent earnings call, Chief Strategy Officer, Frank Britt, elaborated further, “We have come together as a Starbucks community and architected a comprehensive plan to future-proof and profitably grow the company. Our path forward is being informed by tens of thousands of daily customer experiences and our partner stories, ideas and dreams that have all helped shape over the past several months through on-hand collaboration sessions, digital surveys, live open forums and in direct dialogue with our key leaders.

This process is indicative of a new and wide-ranging approach to democratizing innovation at Starbucks. Our reinvention efforts will begin with our core U.S. company-owned retail business, and over time, we'll expand across our global footprint. Specifically, we have prioritized five major strategic shifts to pivot the U.S. business in a new direction.

Today, we will provide the guideposts and address the what of the overall program, while the how of this agenda will be reviewed on Investor Day in September. To that end, first, powered by ongoing partner co-creation, we work to further connect the company to truly operate as one global enterprise enabled by new ways of working and a range of contemporary practices and tools.” 

Though we’ll have to wait another month or so for more detailed plans, Schultz and his colleagues suggest that the company is looking to not only revamp its technology footprint, but drastically transform its culture. 

Gartner Says Worldwide RPA Software Spending to Reach $2.9 Billion in 2022 

Despite fears of a looming recession, the outlook for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) spending looks, well, pretty good. 

According to industry whisperer Gartner, “although growing at a slower pace than previous years, the worldwide RPA software market is projected to continue to experience double-digit growth in 2023, growing 17.5% year over year.”

Varsha Mehta, senior market research specialist at Gartner, also added, “Competitive RPA vendors and many software vendors are pushing beyond a traditional single technology-focused offering to a more advanced suite of tools that encompasses low-code application platforms, process mining, task mining, decision modeling, iPaaS, computer vision, and IDP capabilities on top of their existing RPA offering. This allows them to offer, or rather makes them poised to offer, an all-encompassing hyperautomation-enabiling technology platform."

As for what’s causing the slow down, in other think pieces this week, many experts argued that the issue is less about budget limitations and more about change thresholds and lack of proven ROI from past investments. After two years of constant change and upheaval, many organizations simply lack the appetite for new, potentially disruptive technology. Furthermore, as we’ve documented in that past, the success rate of RPA projects has been mixed. 

Our prediction is that, over the next five years, as legacy technology continues to get phased out and enterprise technology ecosystems continue to grow in sophistication, RPA will once again reign supreme. 

Meta is putting its latest AI chatbot on the web for the public to talk to

We must give credit where credit is due. When it comes to AI research and innovation, Meta is staying ahead of the curve.

Its latest AI project: BlenderBot 3, a state-of-the-art, large language model (LLM) chatbot. Though LLMSs such as GPT-3 are known to be extremely versatile and capable of performing numerous tasks without undergoing extra training, they have a number of serious drawbacks. The ones Meta hopes to address with BlenderBot 3 are hallucination, the tendency of LLMs to generate false information, and AI bias.

With this in mind, Meta is turning to the public for help testing and training BlenderBot3. As explained on the company’s tech blog, “Allowing an AI system to interact with people in the real world leads to longer, more diverse conversations, as well as more varied feedback. For example, you can react to each chat message in our BlenderBot 3 demo by clicking either the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icons. Choosing a thumbs-down lets you explain why you disliked the message — whether it was off-topic, nonsensical, rude, spam-like or something else. You can also submit feedback in the chat itself.”

Interested in giving it a go? You can chat with BlenderBot 3 HERE. 

A.I. Is Not Sentient. Why Do People Say It Is?

Speaking of Artificial Intelligence, as covered on our sister site ADA, some AI researchers are starting to believe that the AI models they’re developing have become sentient. However, just in case you had any doubts, the New York Times has officially confirmed these claims couldn’t be more untrue.

Though the article does touch on why we’re still a long, long way from achieving sentient AI, if its even possible at all, its true focus is on the psychology of these AI researchers and the dangers of viewing AI technology as anything close to human. Afterall, if a computer scientist can be fooled into thinking a chatbot is human, what does that mean for the rest of us? 

New Technique Brings Quantum Computers Closer to Their Promise

Are we closer to the first commercial quantum computer than we think? 

Last week, industry leader Quantinuum announced that they’ve made significant advancements in overcoming one key hurdle: error correction. As reported by CNet, “The new achievement could eventually lead to developments that allow quantum computers to crack encryption, design more efficient solar panels and meet other promises of the complex machines. Such potential will likely encourage companies, governments and universities to continue investing in the technology though realizing its potential remains years away.”

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