Image: MasterCard
SoftBank Robotics’ Pepper robot will now take your pizza order courtesy of MasterCard and Pizza Hut.
Pepper is a customer service robot primarily used in Asia to assist customers in stores and booths, but now it has learned how to take customers’ pizza orders. The order-taking service is powered by MasterCard’s digital payment system, MasterPass, and it’s available in Pizza Hut Asia. It’s slated to provide customers with a social yet robotic experience, pairing with customer’s MasterPass wallets, taking their orders, and completing the transaction.
Customers will, of course, need to use MasterPass to take advantage of this new pizza-ordering-by-robot feature. To start, customers greet Pepper and pair their phone using the MasterPass app. Pairing can be done through the app by tapping a Pepper icon or by scanning a QR code on Pepper’s chest-mounted tablet. Once paired, Pepper will make friendly recommendations, provide product information and special offers, and complete the transaction. It does so while making friendly hand gestures and expressions. The whole transaction takes place within the MasterPass app so it’s fast and secure, and at the moment, Pepper doesn’t accept cash.
Luckily MasterPass works with different cards and not just MasterCard. Maestro, American Express, Diner’s Club, Discover, and Visa work are supported so most customers can chat with Pepper for pizza.
“Consumers have come to expect personalized service, customized offers and simple and seamless processes both in-store and online,” Tobias Puehse, vice president, innovation management, Digital Payments & Labs at MasterCard said. “The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalized shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.”
As you can see in the video above, Pepper has already upgraded to a pizza-ordering professional. Of course it’s a PR video absent of any robot hiccups, but the Pepper Partners Europe event in Paris will show the app live.
Pepper is learning more than just how to take your pizza orders. At Google I/O last week, SoftBank announced that Pepper will run on Android. This will open doors for developers to start building a wide range of apps for Pepper. It won’t be that long before we see Pepper boarding passengers for flights, helping customers find the right groceries, and more.
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