Six humanoid robots have spent 24 hours working in a Shanghai convenience store, greeting customers, preparing coffee, serving food, and restocking shelves. But when the shift ended, only four of the machines passed their performance assessments, highlighting the difficulties robots still face when handling unpredictable everyday tasks.
The experiment, called “Robots Never Clock Out,” was organized by Chinese robotics company AGIBOT and ran from 10 a.m. on November 2 to 10 a.m. on November 3 at an operating convenience store in Shanghai’s Xuhui district. The company deployed six G2 wheeled humanoid robots and livestreamed the challenge, attracting more than two million viewers across online platforms.
According to AGIBOT, the machines collectively completed 1,730 tasks during the trial. However, two robots assigned to cleaning and shelf inspection, and restocking did not meet the company’s performance criteria.
The six robots were assigned different retail responsibilities, covering customer assistance, product handling, coffee preparation, hot-food service, and cleaning.
AGIBOT reported that the machines completed 683 customer-service interactions, 369 product pickups and deliveries, 147 coffee orders and 126 breakfast servings. They also performed 277 shelf-inspection and restocking tasks and 128 table-cleaning assignments.
The trial covered four operating periods: the lunchtime rush, evening peak hours, overnight operations, and the following morning’s breakfast rush. This exposed the robots to different levels of customer activity and changing store conditions rather than limiting the demonstration to a short, controlled task.
Robots Never Clock Out | AGIBOT G2’s 24-Hour Convenience Store Challenge Six AGIBOT G2 take on a 24-hour shift as convenience store trainees.
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