Just imagine: this is the end of your working week, Friday evening, and you are joyfully walking to your favorite pub to relax why you grab a pint. You pick up your friends next to the pub. You get inside – bummer – there’s a giant line of thirsty people in front of your face. Pretty typical. So, you get stuck in a line for what feels like the whole century. Have you ever felt like everyone already has got drinks, except you? 

British data science company DataSparQ decided to deal with this injustice. They have developed a fantastic facial recognition technology for bars, based on AI. The system puts customers in an intelligently virtual line, letting the bar staff know who is next. In this way, it is possible to get rid of pretentious visitors and make the queue fair.

“We’re trying to solve this problem, using AI, bringing new technologies, and facial recognition to make bar queueing fair,” tells John Wyllie, Managing Director of DataSparQ.

To help to solve real problems between bartenders and customers the technology has been tested at 5cc Harrild & Sons bar in London.

“We track people coming into space. This is shown on a big screen behind the bar. Customers can see them in a live video feed with their numbers above their head telling exactly where in the queue they are, and how long they must wait to be served,” says John Wyllie.

The machine will know that the person in front of you is going to order a snack or a cocktail, and how long you might expect.

“If I got a shot, and turn to speak to a friend, tie my shoelace or go back to the table to confirm the order – your face is remembered for a short period. When you come back into the queue – the place is held,” explains John Wyllie.

The separate tablet application for the staff behind the bar tells who is next to serve. They can swipe to clean them from the list. It shows who needs to be checked for ID, and who has already been checked.

“All this technology allows the bar staff to serve their customers more effectively,” sums up the managing director.

A stressful and unfair queueing system at the bar – this is the problem people all over the world are familiar with. Hopefully, the AI bar will change it.

Photo credit: InVAte