Food giant Nestle said on Wednesday that its Japan unit plans to hire 1,000 robots as sales clerks at stores across the country.
The first batch of the robots – a chatty humanoid called Pepper – will report to work by the end of this year at outlets that sell coffee capsules and home espresso machines.
Pepper – which has already been at work, chatting with customers at wireless giant SoftBank’s outlets – has proved an effective marketing tool for the Japanese mobile carrier, delighting managers who put it to work collecting customer opinions.
(Source: The Japan Times Online)