Alibaba’s futuristic hotel uses robots for chores and facial recognition tech

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba showed off its futuristic tech hotel where it uses robots to perform chores such as delivering food.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd revealed its futuristic ‘FlyZoo’ hotel in China in which it made use of robots instead of human labor to perform usual chores and hence, cutting down costs.

The robots are black, disc-shaped, about a meter in height and are able to deliver food and drop off fresh towels for the customers. The robots are among the other high-tech tools in the hotel that can reduce hotel’s cost of human labor and eliminate the need for guests to interact with other people, reported Reuters.

The hotel is a 290-room incubator filled with technology that Alibaba has showcased to prowess in artificial intelligence. The hotel also serves as an experiment that tests consumer comfort levels with unmanned commerce in China.

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CEO of Alibaba Future Hotel Management, Andy Wang said, “It’s all about the efficiency of the service and the consistency of service, because the robots are not disturbed by human moods. Sometimes, we say we are not in the mood, but the system and the robot will always be in the mood.”

When inside, the guests check in at a podium that scans their faces along with passports or IDs. Chinese visitors can scan their faces via their smartphones ahead of time as well. The elevators scan guests’ faces once again to verify the floor they want to go. Hotel rooms also open with face scan technology.

Inside the rooms, there is Alibaba’s voice command tech that can be used to change the temperature, close curtains, adjust lighting and order room service. In the restaurant, robots deliver food to guests that is ordered through FlyZoo’s app. At the bar, there is a gigantic robotic arm able to mix over 20 various cocktails. The charges are added to the room rate automatically via facial recognition cameras, Reuters detailed.

While checking out, the guests press a button on the app after which the room locks and guests are charged automatically via Alibaba’s online wallet. In order to protect safety, once the guests have checked out, the data is immediately erased from the systems, as per Wang.

Moreover, not all jobs have been given to robots, humans are also employed as chefs, cleaners and such. As of for the rates, one night in the hotel room starts from 1,390 yuan ($205).