As automation accelerates, does coffee need to invest more in baristas?

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Key takeaways

• Automation should remove repetitive tasks, not the value of hospitality.
• Roasting and inventory automate fastest; guest connection still can’t.
• Connection, teaching, and community building are skills machines can’t replace.
• Owners’ use of automation’s savings decides whether baristas actually benefit.

Automation has changed how the coffee industry works, from farm to café counter. Producers use machinery to cut manual labour, and roasters rely on software to plan and manage output. Cafés install integrated point-of-sale systems to serve customers faster, and baristas increasingly work alongside automated tampers and milk dispensers.

Michael Phillips, a coffee and hospitality consultant who spent 12 years at Blue Bottle Coffee, says the shift was inevitable. “AI and automation are reshaping basically every profession on the planet that humans touch, so yes, coffee is going to feel it too,” he says.

Coffee shops have offered a place for connection and community since the 17th century, and a growing focus on efficiency can work against that. As cafés adopt more automated systems, the social side of these spaces often narrows.

Michael is careful to separate the technology from how businesses choose to use it. “There is certainly a slippery slope where you add tool after tool chasing efficiency and lower labour costs,” he says. “But that is us making choices, not a fault in the tools.”

This “race to the bottom” puts baristas at risk, a role the industry has historically undervalued in pay and status. Automation can help cafés manage staff shortages and rising costs. Used without limits, though, it can also encourage staff cuts, hold down wages, and reduce the value placed on skilled workers.

The coffee industry is moving quickly to adopt automation. The cafés investing in their baristas alongside that technology, rather than instead of it, will be the ones that keep the community feel that has long set coffee shops apart.

You may also like our article on whether coffee shops can automate while retaining the human touch.

Automation has changed the barista role for good

Over the past decade, specialty coffee shops have built automation into the barista’s daily routine. Automated tampers, milk systems, fully automatic machines, and software-controlled extraction are now standard in many cafés.

Some tools help baristas directly. Automated tampers remove the risk of repetitive strain injury, software adjusts variables automatically to improve extraction and consistency, and dispensing units serve drinks quickly.

“There are cafés using automation to support a range of higher-end, people-forward models, where the machine absorbs the repetitive work so the person can be present with the guest,” Michael says.

Supporters argue that automated tools free up baristas’ time so they can focus on customer service and hospitality. Michael sees a different risk: the drive towards more automation could end up replacing baristas rather than supporting them.

“There will be, there already are, nearly fully automated cafés that need few, if any, human staff,” he says. Octane Coffee, a chain run entirely by robots, has attracted significant investment to expand. The Guardian reported in November 2025 that AI could replace three million low-skilled jobs in the UK by 2035, including in hospitality.

Even so, robots have not replaced baristas outright. A café in Stockholm run entirely by AI closed after failing, and Starbucks withdrew its AI-powered inventory system after nine months, following complaints from staff.

Misun Lim, chief marketing officer at LabCNC and the 2025 Korean National Barista Champion, agrees with Michael. “Automation can’t be a tool for replacing the barista, but rather an instrument for evolving our role,” she says. “When human intuition and insight, which vast databases and statistical models can’t replace, are applied to overcome existing limitations, specialty coffee can truly reach a higher art form.”

Some barista skills will never be replaced

As automation takes over technical tasks, baristas are increasingly judged on customer interaction, storytelling, training, and hospitality. They have long been the face of specialty coffee, connecting customers to the product in a way machines can never replicate.

“The skills that get sought after, and paid for, are the ones the equipment can’t hold: the ability to connect with guests, to build community, to generate real excitement for the product, and to teach,” Michael says. “Those have always been the rarest skills behind any bar, and they’re about to account for the majority of work.”

Café owners increasingly turn to automation to cope with staff shortages and rising costs, which reduces the need to hire more baristas. A smaller team doesn’t mean baristas matter less, according to Michael. “If you’re going to run leaner, the people you keep should be better paid and better developed, not simply fewer,” he says.

Customer habits are reshaping cafés too, not automation alone. Preferences are shifting fast, and convenience and digital interaction now sit close to the centre of the café experience. Mobile and touchscreen ordering has moved from novelty to habit, building on contactless payment, mobile payment and QR ordering.

Michael doesn’t think this changes hospitality’s core, even as the process around it shifts. “Take digital ordering,” he says. “As it takes more of that interaction away from ordering in person, our ability to guide the guest to the best beverage for them shifts from the POS to the pickup area, then to check-in. It moves, rather than disappears.”

Customers still want a genuine experience and a real connection with the person serving them. Automation and AI may be making room for that within busier, faster modern lifestyles.

The pull toward human connection

In an industry like specialty coffee, built on craft and community, the human element will always remain essential. 

Even large chains are recognising this. In response to slumping sales, Starbucks has moved back toward its coffee house roots, prioritising customer service and encouraging guests to stay longer. 

Misun sees this as part of a wider pattern: “We are now experiencing extreme digital fatigue in a hyper-connected society.” The 2025 Digital Life Survey shows up to 70% of people say that long periods of digital activity leave them feeling tired, drained, or exhausted, pushing them towards analogue experiences.

Misun reads Starbucks’ shift as a business response to a basic craving for human connection amid widespread anxiety. “Today’s consumers seek the warmth of a conversation with a loved one, a spark of business inspiration, or a sanctuary to escape reality, a unique emotional comfort that only humans can provide.”

Michael says the part of a barista’s job a machine can take over was always going to become commoditised. “The part it can’t take is the part that made you good at this in the first place,” he says.

For Michael, most of this conversation is framed as technology against people, and he doesn’t think that is the real question. “The real question is what the people who own these businesses do with the margin that automation creates,” he says. “If it goes toward fewer people who are paid better, trained better, and given an actual career path, then automation will have been good for baristas. 

“If it just goes to the bottom line, it won’t be, and the product, the experience, and the people on both sides of the counter will suffer.”

Automation will keep taking over the repetitive parts of a barista’s job, from grinding to inventory to basic orders. But this doesn’t have to be a loss for baristas. What matters most is what café owners do with the time and margin it creates. 

Paid well and invested in, baristas will become more valuable as coffee continues to embrace automation.

Want to grow your sales? Our marketing agency, PDG Media, specialises in helping coffee businesses grow. Get a free marketing audit today.

Automation in coffee FAQs

Will automation replace baristas?
Not entirely. Full automation has struggled, including a failed AI-run café in Stockholm and Starbucks retiring its AI inventory tool after nine months. Automation is more likely to take over repetitive tasks and leave hospitality, the part customers value most, to baristas.

What skills matter most for baristas now?
Technical skill matters less as machines take over routine tasks. What’s in demand is the ability to connect with guests, build community, generate excitement for the product, and educate others.

How are cafés using automation today?
Cafés use automation for repetitive tasks such as grinding, tamping, and inventory management, freeing baristas for guest-facing work. Some models run with minimal staff, while others use automation to support a more people-focused service instead.

Photo credit: Michael Phillips

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