Sacramento assisted living facility using AI-powered robot to help dining room staff
SACRAMENTO --- It's the lunch rush at Oakmont East Sacramento and they're rolling plates out of the kitchen. Quite literally. An AI robot, with trays and a digital map of the dining room, wheels out food from the kitchen to the residents and then busses the dishes when they're done.
"It's different," executive chef Matt Parmley jokes. "It definitely helps keep the attention for the servers on the floor so that way we can do this part back here."
Initially, there was concern among wait staff and the residents.
"At first I did think like, 'Oh no this is not gonna go well'," says Topanga Timko. "But it actually turned out really well."
Oakmont -- an assisted living community with roughly 145 units -- leadership tells CBS13 that one of the biggest concerns with the rollout of this pilot program came from its elderly community. Many didn't want to see artificial intelligence replace the people that had come to enjoy seeing in the dining room.
Instead, Executive Director Luis Olivas and his team made sure that AI worked in tandem with people, not replacing them.
"It is to enhance that relationship," he says. "We're not cutting staffing down in any scope of the imagination. It's to have those servers be next to them and talking to them and really get to know them."
When the robots first rolled out of the kitchen, there was some initial concern that modern change may be too drastic. But many of the residents here, who are an average of 88, actually have come to enjoy their new servers.
"There were robots, two of them, and it was like they came out carrying food and it was just cool," Joann Bodine says. "We're having a contest to name them!"
And even those who are served see the pressure it takes off the wait staff. The food always comes out in a timely fashion and wait staff are much less preoccupied with plating and bussing, instead using their time to chat with diners and make sure other orders are attended to. It also helps alleviate staffing shortages and not require wait staff to always be working to make up for the lack of bodies.
"There's a routine they're supposed to follow and this will allow them to do the routine without all the interruption," Neil Bodine says.
The program is a pilot and while Oakmont East Sacramento's community size is unique, servers see the new change as a net benefit for them and the people they help on a day-to-day basis.
"I like becoming friends with them and they like becoming friends with us," Timko says. "They like telling us stories and I think it makes them more happy when we're around more."
