The Economist: serving coffee made by a robot barista - case study
What We Need

Working in collaboration with Sense Experiential, The Economist wanted to awe commuters on their rush to work by serving them coffee made by a robot barista.
The overall footprint for the activation was limited, and it needed to be sufficiently robust and reliable to be toured across different train stations in London and set up overnight.
Our Response
We worked with The Economist to create a spectacle using a robot to carefully pour a Nespresso cup of coffee, and hand it to the consumer, all triggered in a truly ‘touchless’ fashion, via the wave of a hand. What this illustrates was:
- Online connectivity
- Theatrical and awe inducing
- Precision and consistency
- Touch-free
The Results
The activation raised awareness of robotics and AI, and the role that humans can, and will, play in our future.
Boost Inc got involved in various elements beyond robotics, developing an interactive maze solver to demonstrate the pathways and approaches taken by an AI to solve a ‘complex’ problem, versus a humans approach.