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Starbucks announced on an earnings call Thursday that it would be focused on “major tech modernization” in 2027, including through greater use of artificial intelligence.
That part isn’t surprising given the fact that just about every company says it wants to deploy more AI these days. But one tech application stood out on the earnings call, and it recalls one particular scene from the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise.
Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol said on the call, “We’re also exploring experiences that recognize participating customers as they arrive, present personalized digital menus, and make payment more effortless.” Niccol stressed, “We’re early in this work, and we’ll test, learn, and scale what works.”
If you saw Minority Report, you know why this talk of personalization stands out. There’s a scene where Tom Cruise’s character John Anderton walks into a Gap clothing store. Earlier in the film, Anderton had his eyes swapped because eyes are a way to identify and track people in this futuristic version of the world. The character’s eyes are automatically scanned when he walks into the Gap and he’s greeted as “Mr. Yakamoto,” a Japanese surname used to address a man who is clearly not Japanese.
The avatar of a salesperson asks “how did those tank tops work out for you,” presumably because Yakamoto purchased some tank tops the last time he entered the store.
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