Watched my local bakery go from 8 bakers to 3 after they added an AI ordering system in 2022

Ngl I used to think AI just helped with boring office stuff, but seeing how fast that system handled rushes and prep schedules convinced me it's real. Has anyone else seen a place change that fast in under a year?

3 comments

3 Comments

ivan_murphy8015d ago

The drop from 8 to 3 bakers is wild but makes sense once you see how the system works. I watched a similar thing at a sandwich chain near my office where they swapped the order counter for a big touchscreen kiosk. Suddenly the line would vanish during lunch because the AI was grouping orders by prep time and rerouting the ones that took longest to a separate station. The weird part was seeing the bakers just standing there during slow hours because the system already knew exactly how many croissants to proof for the next day. It's like the AI took over all the thinking and left the humans to just do the hands-on work.

logan56114d ago

Man that's rough to hear, 8 down to 3 in one year is brutal. I've seen it with a local coffee chain here too, they put in those AI scheduling systems and now the baristas just do what the machine tells them. It's like the human touch is getting squeezed out slowly. You feel for those bakers who probably knew the dough by feel and smell, now they're just following screen prompts. Makes you wonder if the quality stays the same when the system's calling all the shots on proofing times and ingredient ratios.

murphy.tessa13d ago

Ha ha, right? So the bakers went from being actual craftspeople to just meat robots following blinking lights. I guess the good news is they don't have to think about the dough's "feel" anymore, just whatever number the screen spits out. Watching the system perfectly predict how many croissants to make must feel like being replaced by a really boring fortune teller. I wonder if the AI also handles the "soul" of the bread, or if that's just an optional feature they didn't pay for.