Chipotle has collaborated with Vebu Labs to develop a collaborative robot, or cobotic, prototype called Autocado that can assist in preparing guacamole. The robot peels, cuts, and cores avocados, freeing up employees from mundane tasks so they can focus on more complex work. The goal is to create efficiencies for specific labor-intensive tasks, allowing team members to focus on other tasks that require critical-thinking skills or nuanced culinary skills.

The Autocado prototype is currently in the proof-of-concept phase, with plans to test it in a restaurant later this year. The company is taking a deliberate approach to ensure safety, quality, and useability standards are met.

The effort to automate repetitive tasks makes sense for Chipotle, particularly in the current tight labor market. Robots can deliver precision, consistency, and speed that humans can’t match, which can help restaurants increase throughput and improve worker safety.

However, implementing cobotic colleagues will take time due to high deployment costs, technical complexity, and potential negative perceptions from customers and workers.