Starbucks scraps AI inventory tool across North America(reuters.com)
reuters.com
Starbucks scraps AI inventory tool across North America
https://www.reuters.com/business/starbucks-scraps-ai-inventory-tool-across-north-america-2026-05-21/
3 comments
I would like to read a postmortem of this effort. Why didn’t it work out? If I attempt a similar project, where are the hidden pitfalls?
The full article is paywalled, but this is what they give you before the paywall pop-up.
"Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab terminated an AI program workers used for automating certain inventory counts this week, nine months after deploying it across its North American stores, according to an internal newsletter reviewed by Reuters and two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The tool was part of CEO Brian Niccol's efforts to fix the coffee chain's persistent product shortages that he has blamed for hurting sales. The app - designed to improve Starbucks’ visibility into shortages at stores - frequently miscounted and mislabeled items, such as confusing similar milk types or missing them altogether, Reuters reported in February."
It sounds as if they were using image recognition to record inventory. Would you really expect it to be reliable?!
"Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab terminated an AI program workers used for automating certain inventory counts this week, nine months after deploying it across its North American stores, according to an internal newsletter reviewed by Reuters and two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The tool was part of CEO Brian Niccol's efforts to fix the coffee chain's persistent product shortages that he has blamed for hurting sales. The app - designed to improve Starbucks’ visibility into shortages at stores - frequently miscounted and mislabeled items, such as confusing similar milk types or missing them altogether, Reuters reported in February."
It sounds as if they were using image recognition to record inventory. Would you really expect it to be reliable?!
So AI is unreliable. Who knew?