The $110,000 Robot Bartender Mixing Great Cocktails

At a small cocktail stand in the middle of London’s Barbican Centre, a crowd is watching a bartender spin and whirl around a shaker full of ingredients for a passion fruit martini. The mixologist’s moves aren’t quite as acrobatic as those of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, but this level of behind-the-bar showmanship is the sort of thing that would normally fill a tip jar. The thing is, though, tipping isn’t an option here. After all, what would a robot bartender spend the money on?

Makr Shakr, a robotic bartending system serving customers at the Barbican’s “AI: More Than Human” exhibition this summer, is the brainchild of Italian architect Carlo Ratti. While it started as a one-off project for a Google event in 2013, the technology is now a commercial product sold through Torino, Italy-based Makr Shakr Srl. The company has delivered robo-bartending systems to Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. as well as hotels and exhibitions around the world. Emanuele Rossetti, chief executive officer of Makr Shakr, spoke with Bloomberg Markets special reports editor Siobhan Wagner about how he sees artificial intelligence and data analysis playing a future role in bars and restaurants.