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In today’s world, emerging mega-trends are driving how automated services are working with personalized data and the cloud to create new user experiences for retail, healthcare, entertainment, and beyond.
An Evolving Customer Experience Expectation is happening because of COVID
The customer experience is increasingly expected to be completely connected and responsive. Millennial, and Gen Z customers across all sectors increasingly expect dynamic experiences that create personalization and authenticity in real-time. With Covid-19 the expectation across most sectors is that a customer experience is not just highly personalized, but safe and frictionless.
As customers develop new ideas about what shopping, interacting with brands, and responding to real-time advertising means in an increasingly connected world, there is an increased opportunity to automate this entire process through robotics and monetization of other connected services such as advertising.
Gartner, BCG, and other research firms continue to revise growth estimates of automation, robotics, and AI upwards to as much as 40% CAGR. COVID has been a significant precursor that has driven this growth because end users are increasingly selecting services that are “frictionless” and ”low touch”. This trend is hitting the “turbocharge button” on request for both automated hardware and supporting services.
These changes, along with an accelerated network and cloud economy is driving huge growth:
As cloud, IoT, and 5G networks become more widely available and access to resources, tools, distribution, and investment continue to expand, it is not surprising that the accelerated network economy is fueling new innovation approaches, distributed models, and a direct connection to the customer will impact traditional brick and mortar and how consumers shop. This is fueling the growth and value of automation.
Food services, Medical, Canna, and Entertainment are evolving towards automation:
From Uber Founder Travis Kalanick creating Cloud Kitchens, to automatically cook food and deliver it, to the advent of self-driving electric cars from Tesla that can power entire economies, the advent of fully automated services that are highly personalized are among the most valuable, high growth areas of emerging businesses.
Dojo has worked with some of the world’s leading partners who have designed, prototyped, and launched a full suite of self-serve machines in market for fast food (*Pizza) but also Canna and Medical. End users are attaching quickly to these user experiences and the units are designed to use Facial Recognition, Mobile, and other IoT to make the experience more powerful and personalized.
“Basil Street Pizza” which is one expression of how Dojo Partners worked with the Commercial Automation team and how self-serve design and innovation is quickly being adopted across many markets including food services, retail, and hospitality. Medical, Canna, and other sectors are quickly being built and deployed as well.
In addition to designing, prototyping, and launching self-services automation, Dojo and Commercial Automation also support a comprehensive AI-driven platform approach that drives a more personalized experience for the end-user.
Covid-19 has created new expectations for health, safety, and convenience for customers across all sectors. Self-service robotics is one example of how users can quickly and easily buy lunch, a snack, or any meal or any consumer goods for that matter without the overhead of getting in their car, waiting in a crowded line, or exposing themselves, their friends, family, or co-workers to risk.
A Pre-history of Automation that is coming to life now because of Covid Early experiments in automation include firms such as Redbox, who proved that end users would engage in self serve and that engagement could result in a high growth, highly profitable network of media distribution. Redbox quickly built billions in valuation in the movie market which was a $10b TAM 10 years ago. Current markets for fast food, canna, and retail are much larger than the initial Redbox TAM and are growing even more quickly with the expectation of touch-free, frictionless services inflecting. The Canna, Healthcare, and Automated Retail Market all have a much higher current TAM than the original Redbox opportunity and those opportunities are only growing.
Today, microstore and other automated experiences have become increasingly popular in bringing a lower-cost physical experience to airports, colleges, train stations, hotels, retirement centers, and many other locations.
Increasing accessibility for kiosks and other automated services: As the cost for robotics, sensors, network, and implementation for kiosk and other “microstore” expressions starts to become more desirable, connected, and user-friendly, many retailers are using microstores in highly concentrated areas to save money on larger installations, automating services, and fulfilling orders – creating brand engagement 24/7 while simultaneously responding to a user experience interest in low touch, frictionless shopping.
For example, Straight Talk wireless has become the nation’s 5th largest carrier despite being pre-paid — while being sold almost entirely out of self-serve kiosks in Walmart. Meanwhile, CVS and other major retailers are building a self-serve network in airports and other locations.
Dojo helped incubate MJ Headline News, Marijuana Business Association, and “The Green Pages” all of which provide us with immediate connection to some of the nation’s fastest-growing Canna Businesses. *The desire for low touch, low cost, and “frictionless” distribution for Canna and CBD is likely even greater than the other market sectors we have outlined.
Vending machines designed for facial recognition, mobile, and IoT device interaction are poised to pop up in more and more places servicing products from food, electronics, pharmaceutical, and cannabis products. This will provide low-friction, instant gratification as the tastes of Generation Z continue to force innovation in markets today. This is just the beginning of automation.