Season 8, Post 25: The robot coffee test

If AI-enabled shopping agents aren’t yet cutting the mustard (see last week’s Blog), then what about robots? Perhaps the best practical use-cases for AI may not lie in software doing shopping on our behalf, but in hardware performing genuinely useful tasks. Let’s consider, then, whether a robot could make a cup of coffee.

Some may debate whether the coffee test constitutes a ‘genuinely useful’ task, but the question remains pertinent. Wind the clock back to 2007. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak predicted that robots would “never” be able to make a cup of coffee. Give a human an unfamiliar machine and they should be able to operate it without a problem. For a robot, this could be a whole different proposition.

The convergence of the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence – historically distinct disciplines – has been driving the real robot revolution. As we discussed in detail last year, artificial intelligence has the potential to be transformational in terms of the way in which robots learn to move and navigate environments. Ask experts when robots might pass the coffee test* and the median prediction is 2034.

Almost eight years from now does not sound very impressive. However, it’s still a marked improvement on Wozniak’s world view. Several important lessons can be learned from this discussion. First, today’s humanoids are the most expensive and least capable they will ever be. Next, make clear what robots can do at the outset to minimise the scope for potential disappointment. Do not anthropomorphise robots or exaggerate their capabilities. Finally, slopes of enlightenment are almost always preceded by troughs of disappointment.

Your author will continue to ponder these matters in one of the homes of coffee culture over the next couple of weeks. Since the Ottoman empire in the 16th century, Turkish coffee has established a central place in social rituals. Habits such as these help make us human. Happy holidays. The Future Trends Blog will return towards the end of the month.

14 July 2026

*The specific test “requires a robot to make a cup of coffee in three different unstructured, unfamiliar environments of equivalent complexity to an ordinary home, without making any mistakes.”

The above is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that may change. The views expressed are solely those of the author at the time of writing. This article should not be relied upon for investment decisions. Past performance does not predict future returns, the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise.