Muscovites Enjoy Pizza Delivery by Robot
The preference for extra cheese or sauce is not the only one Russians are choosing when they order pizza. Now, people in Moscow can choose to have their pizza order delivered by a) a human or b) a robot, thanks to robotic innovations by Yandex, a Russian technology company.
The company’s self-driving robot navigates certain areas of the Russian capital and it can carry mail or deliver groceries, too. On each journey, its algorithms learn how to best navigate new situations on the city’s snowy streets. Yandex is just one of the companies meeting the demand for the robot delivery market, which is expected to grow to a $30.05 billion market by 2030, up from $3 billion in 2020.
Robotic pizza delivery touches on trends such as Frictionless and Access Economy, both of which have been heightened in pandemic times, when gaining access to items like food in a human-free (and safe) zone becomes a priority.
Pandemic or not, the pizza robot shows how everyday interactions are evolving between automation and humans. The difference is in getting to choose when we’re in the mood for an in-person touch or a machine one.
Of course, you might want to ask the robot how it feels about trekking in subzero temps to deliver that pineapple ham deep pan.
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Anna is the Editorial Director at sparks & honey and author of sparks & honey’s cultural intelligence reports. She eats blueberries at 5pm every day, and when she's not writing, Anna is running across bridges in NYC, taking photographs along the way.