Coffee shop in Austin let me watch their AI roaster at work

I was at a place called Fleet Coffee last weekend and the barista showed me their new AI system that tracks batch-to-batch consistency. It tweaks temperature and timing based on real-time bean moisture data from 15 different runs. I didn't realize this tech was already in small roasteries, not just big factories. Has anyone else seen something like this in their local shops?

2 comments

2 Comments

jenniferb531mo ago

OH wow, that's actually WILD. I wonder if these AI systems are quietly training themselves on customer taste preferences too, like tracking which batches get reordered vs dumped. That would be a TOTAL game changer for small shops trying to compete with the big guys.

gavin_reed1mo ago

Jennifer's got a solid point there. From what I've seen in the craft food space, a lot of those smaller operations are already using feedback loops like that, just not with fancy AI. A local bakery near me literally keeps a notebook of which flavors get returned half-eaten and which ones sell out in hours. It's a manual process but the principle is the same. If a system could quietly track that data for a whole bunch of shops and spot patterns no one noticed, that could level the playing field way faster than most people realize.