Alibaba A.I. Labs launches hospitality robot

With the robotics industry revolutionising the world, Alibaba A.I. Labs has launched service robots for the hospitality sector starting in October.

Alibaba A.I. Labs is the department leading consumer artificial intelligence (AI) product development at Alibaba.

The Labs' service robot demonstrates what guests can expect at hotels in the future – from delivering meals to taking laundry to guest. Guests talk to the robot via voice command, touch and hand gesture, and its responses are driven by AliGenie, the software that powers Alibaba A.I. Labs’ smart speaker, Tmall Genie.

“We are excited by this tremendous development that is helping us bridge the gap between guest needs and the response time that they expect. Alibaba A.I. Labs’ robot is the next step in the evolution towards smart hotels. In addition, it is solving pain points in the hotel sector, such as enhancing service efficiency, with our leading AI technologies,” said Lijuan Chen, general manager of Alibaba A.I. Labs. “The robot will be the ultimate assistant for hotel guests who want everything quickly and conveniently at their fingertips.”

The company said the technology that drives the Labs’ service robot is state-of-the-art, combining aluminium casing with multi-sensor data functionality and parallel computing for lightning quick responses. It also includes a semantic map, autonomous navigation system to identify obstacles, communication systems to control elevators, and identity verification via facial-recognition technology.

The robot’s height is less than one metre, while its walking speed reaches one meter per second. After a trial at a hotel, Alibaba A.I. Labs will assess its suitability for other areas, including hospitals, restaurants and office services.