Guide (Coffeeyo.com): What will the coffee shop of the future look like? Most people would include one element in their imagination: robots. By Wang Qing.

Author | Wang Qing

What will the coffee shop of the future look like? A thousand people will have a thousand answers, but most will have one element in mind: robots.

On July 29, at the online summit for the “Yingzhi XBOT Embodied Commercial Robot” project, Tang Mu, founder and CEO of Yingzhi XBOT, estimated that “within three years, at least 100,000 robot coffee kiosks will emerge in China” — a figure twice the combined number of Luckin and Cotti stores operating domestically.

Prior to this, Yingzhi XBOT had formally launched its self-operated chain coffee brand XBOT COFFEE and its first flagship experience store XBOT Lab. The core element of both is not human baristas but coffee robots.

“Startup Frontline” found on-site that the XBOT C3 coffee robot launched by Yingzhi XBOT mainly makes coffee with a robotic arm. Besides standard Americanos and lattes, it can also customize latte art. XBOT Lab is positioned as “human-robot collaboration” — the robot handles stable coffee output while human staff handle packing, replenishment and daily maintenance.

The industry’s common concern is: what is the profit model of coffee robots entering the market? As they proliferate, what ecosystem will they form with chain freshly-made coffee brands like Luckin and Cotti?

1. Coffee Robot or Automatic Coffee Machine?

The XBOT C3 coffee robot launched by Yingzhi XBOT compresses a coffee shop into a machine occupying about 2 square meters, containing an espresso machine, milk frother, ice maker and printer, with the robotic arm “holding” the cup to connect the various devices.

Beyond hardware, XBOT C3 is paired with Yingzhi’s self-developed XOS 3.0 system, giving the robot full-chain capabilities of “seeing, understanding and executing”. The Aibao store-manager Agent on the interaction screen — dressed in an apron and reminding users to pick up their order — is an embodiment of this system.

Reportedly, the system enables cross-embodiment skill transfer — an operation learned once can be reused even after the robot’s form changes.

Unlike humanoid robots, some consumers see the coffee robot more as a device.

“I carefully observed the XBOT C3 machine and felt it is just a robotic arm plus an automatic coffee machine,” one consumer said.

Tang Mu, founder and CEO of Yingzhi XBOT, explained in detail why he chose a robotic arm over a humanoid robot in an exclusive interview with “Startup Frontline”.

He said that, on the one hand, in making coffee, baristas mostly use their wrists and forearms, while fingers mainly grasp cups; a robotic arm’s gripping form can replicate most of a barista’s movements.

On the other hand, a robotic arm’s gripping is cheaper than human-like finger-joint design, laying the foundation for later commercialization.

But in actual commercial application, to ensure safety and stability, the XBOT C3 coffee robot cut some interactivity.

For example, Tang Mu told us, the original coffee robot’s arm was exposed, letting consumers watch the coffee-making process up close, and some would touch it as it handed over the coffee, creating interaction.

“But in later commercial use, we found hygiene risks in that scenario, so we enclosed it in a glass cover,” Tang Mu said.

This obsession with commercialization is tied to Tang Mu’s past career. Before founding Yingzhi XBOT, Tang Mu held core roles at Tencent CDC and Xiaomi’s exploration lab, leading QQ-series product experience design and creating products like the XiaoAI speaker and Xiaomi router.

Tang Mu told us these experiences made him deeply realize that over-emphasizing a product’s high-tech “grandeur” and keeping consumers at arm’s length cannot achieve commercial success.

“The coffee robot itself is a ‘plain’ name; its positioning is to truly enter consumers’ lives. Therefore, rather than emphasizing the robot concept, I care more about whether it can deliver a good cup of coffee to consumers,” Tang Mu said.

Tianyan Check shows Yingzhi XBOT was founded in November 2022; its current products include coffee robots, ice-cream robots and general-purpose dining humanoid robots.

According to earlier 36Kr reports, Yingzhi XBOT has completed two rounds of financing worth hundreds of millions of yuan — the 200-million-yuan Series A led by Hong Kong’s Jiantian Capital (GPTX), and a Series B of 300–500 million yuan with multiple government funds, USD funds and industrial investors participating.

In terms of deployment, over 1,000 XBOT coffee robots have been placed globally across 100 cities, cumulatively making over 4 million cups of coffee. “Startup Frontline” found via the XBOT COFFEE mini-program that in Beijing the machines are mainly placed in office buildings, scenic areas and shopping malls.

To further scale up, XBOT COFFEE has opened franchising and in mid-July listed its coffee robots for sale on JD.com, with the XBOT C3 priced at 219,000 yuan and the Lite version at 239,900 yuan. “Startup Frontline” learned the main difference is that the Lite version uses dual-arm collaboration while the XBOT C3 uses a single arm, and actual prices fluctuate with JD channel promotions.

According to Yingzhi XBOT’s sales lead, XBOT currently has two business models: XBOT ROBOT solution sales and XBOT COFFEE beverage brand franchising. Under solution sales, customers can customize DIY body paint, choose their own brand LOGO and use their own coffee supplier after buying the equipment, but cannot use the XBOT brand mark or its associated food-safety qualifications.

Under the direct/franchise model, both parties are bound by coffee brand operation rules; XBOT COFFEE provides operations and maintenance services to franchise partners. Beyond equipment purchase, they must follow brand cooperation and direct material procurement norms.

“Compared with opening a physical cafe, the main advantage of this project is saving rent and labor costs. If we make 100 cups a day on average, the payback period is about half a year,” the sales lead said.

So, what market structure will the constantly deploying coffee robots form with the existing “Luckin-Cotti crowd”?

2. The Barista’s “Efficiency Revolution”?

The “2026 China Urban Coffee Development Report” shows that in 2025, the national coffee industry scale reached 354.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 13.3%. National per-capita coffee consumption reached 28.57 cups, up from 22.24 cups in 2024 and 16.74 cups in 2023.

The rising demand for coffee among Chinese people and the standardized production process are among the market opportunities Tang Mu spotted.

“Startup Frontline” found that baristas’ attitudes toward coffee robots differ today: those working at chain brands like Cotti and Luckin feel their coffee-making process is similar to a robot’s; while another kind — “coffee proprietors” serving specialty coffee — believe parts of their work cannot be replaced by robots.

Xiao Kong, who has worked at Luckin for a year and a half, told us that during peak hours she makes 200 cups a day, working non-stop for four or five hours, and the process is very fixed and mechanical.

“For example, making a coconut latte, the milliliters of coconut milk and coffee liquid are standard, the coffee is extracted via the machine’s fixed program, and the only variables are controlling sweetness and temperature or switching the milk base or bean variety,” Xiao Kong said. Repeating those mechanical movements gives her little sense of achievement, and she often wishes a robot could replace her.

Another barista working at Cotti also told us that because the drink-making process is fairly standardized and follows recipes, one can get the hang of it in a day or two.

The above baristas told us their time to make one cup ranges from 30 seconds to a minute, while XBOT’s product line — covering Americano/milk-coffee/latte-art series — makes a non-latte-art cup in about 45 seconds, outputs 80 cups per hour, and can run 24 hours with more stable, durable efficiency.

But Xiao Kong also said that compared with coffee robots, human staff have higher flexibility — “for instance, if a customer finds they ordered wrong or have personalized taste needs, we can respond and adjust in time. But if the coffee robot is ‘unmanned’, the response is slower.”

Another employee at a Starbucks Reserve store told us that although coffee production is standardized, her sense of achievement comes from interacting with customers — “I like the feeling of being praised and photographed by customers after latte art, and I will introduce the coffee bean origins and Starbucks’ sourcing channels to them.”

That employee also said Starbucks highly values connection with customers — “Our store traffic is average; I try my best to introduce coffee to guests. I believe only coffee made by humans has more warmth.”

In fact, in some private cafes or specialty coffee shops, baristas have their own understanding and pursuit of coffee; they generally believe that the communication and introduction with customers, as well as categories like hand-pour that don’t rely on machines, are parts robots cannot replace.

These scenarios raise the discussion: where is the functional boundary of coffee robots? Beyond independent operation, what cooperation model can they form with baristas?

Tang Mu told us that in his vision, coffee robots handle repetitive, standardized coffee output, while human baristas handle communication with customers and new product R&D.

This envisioned scenario is similar to what Shao Buyun, operations director of Nowwa Coffee, said externally before; and in April this year, Nowwa Coffee and Keenon Robotics jointly built a “robot cafe” pop-up store in Shanghai, achieving the world’s first collaboration between a humanoid robot brand and a coffee chain brand.

At the event, consumers ordered via voice or tablet, and Keenon’s humanoid robot autonomously completed the full coffee-making process. So, how is the cooperation between the non-humanoid XBOT coffee robot and chain coffee brands going?

Tang Mu revealed that some freshly-made chain coffee brands differ greatly from his positioning of coffee robots.

“We see the coffee robot as a form of employee, and the coffee robot experience store as a future model of coffee shops, but in the eyes of some chain freshly-made brands, the coffee robot is just a machine. This cognitive gap means that during cooperation talks, the XBOT coffee robot gets priced as a piece of equipment in the supply chain, failing to fully show our advantages in user experience and store operations,” Tang Mu said.

He further added that business competition is an efficiency revolution, and coffee brands hoping to use coffee robots to rapidly expand stores and raise market share have major cooperation opportunities with XBOT coffee robots.

Over the past year, affected by e-commerce platform subsidies and the takeaway war, coffee prices on delivery channels have fallen sharply.

The “2026 China Urban Coffee Development Report” shows that in 2025, the average order value of coffee takeaway fell from 29.42 yuan to 14.30 yuan, especially in Q3 (the subsidy war peak) when it once dropped to 11.88 yuan, with sub-10-yuan low-price orders already occupying nearly half the market.

In the XBOT COFFEE mini-program, we saw the price range of products on sale concentrated between 6.9 and 18.9 yuan, in the same range as Luckin, Cotti, Luckin’s “Lucky Cup” and other brands.

Tang Mu told us XBOT coffee averages a little over ten yuan, but is not uniformly priced — at scenic areas, museums and other partner locations it may be appropriately raised with the channel partner.

However, the difficulty of deploying coffee robots is not price positioning.

3. The Inevitable Rival

According to Zhaimen Catering data, as of July 2026, Luckin’s operating stores exceeded 34,000 and Cotti’s reached 16,000. The number of XBOT coffee robots deployed is merely a fraction of the leading freshly-made chain brands.

This means the placement points of coffee robots need to penetrate deeper into the “capillaries” of cities.

Consumer Yingying told us she uses the coffee robot not because there is no Luckin near her workplace, but because the coffee robot is closer.

“In summer, walking to the cafe means passing a stretch of road with no shade, which feels hot; the coffee delivered may arrive at the wrong temperature; and it happens that a coffee robot is placed at the canteen door of my workplace, which feels much more convenient,” Yingying said.

In fact, compared with Luckin and Cotti, XBOT coffee robots mainly fill the “last mile” for consumers — in closed office parks unreachable by delivery, or on campus teaching buildings and in canteens, getting closer to consumers.

Nevertheless, affected by the store density of freshly-made coffee brands, the penetration space left for coffee robots keeps shrinking.

We consulted multiple office building operators, all of whom said there is a Luckin nearby and no plan to introduce coffee robots; some also told us Luckin opened right on the first floor of the office building, already convenient enough.

An industry insider pointed out to us that although Chinese demand for coffee keeps growing, each person’s daily cups are still limited; as a business form entering after the freshly-made brands, if coffee robots want to seize market share, they need to become the “affordable substitute” of Luckin and Cotti rather than a “reserve substitute”.

With the ongoing development of coffee robots, a head-on clash with freshly-made coffee brands is inevitable.

Moreover, as a new business model, consumers’ awareness of coffee robots is still in the cultivation stage.

Some robots placed in scenic areas can attract consumers to check in and try via scenic customized latte art; but machines placed in office and campus scenarios need to consider repeat-purchase rates.

This means coffee robots need sufficient flavor assurance and new-product frequency to keep attracting consumers.

We noticed that many coffee robot brands in the market are gradually forming their own flavor systems.

For example, COFE+ coffee robot launched a “national ace” coffee series letting consumers taste global flavors without leaving home; “Fuyou Coffee” coffee robot hit local-flavor tags, enriching coffee flavor by adding Guangdong-region specialty herbal ingredients; XBOT coffee robot works on raw materials, improving taste via self-developed beans and premium milk sources.

But currently, compared with Luckin and Cotti, coffee robots have not formed sufficient flavor dominance; some consumers bluntly told us that if the coffee robot can’t be cheaper than Luckin, why not just choose Luckin?

We found XBOT coffee robot is indeed continuously attracting consumers through deeper discounts — for example, in the XBOT COFFEE community, consumers can get benefits via check-ins: 3 consecutive days = 38% off, 5 days = 18% off, 7 days = free coffee.

But whether this strategy becomes an effective means to promote repeat purchases remains to be verified by the market.

From the franchisee’s perspective, the price of different brands and models of coffee robots sold on the market ranges from 130,000 to 400,000 yuan; besides XBOT, several other coffee robot brands told us their payback period is also 6–8 months.

This also means what new stories XBOT coffee robot can tell in the hundred-billion-yuan coffee market will be not only a point of interest for consumers but also a focus for franchisees.

From current development, efficiency is the coffee robot’s “important weapon” but not yet its “ace card”. It does fill consumption scenarios traditional chains cannot cover, tearing open new incremental affordable coffee with unmanned operation and lowering operating costs, but flavor barriers, repeat-purchase operations and brand awareness are the three hurdles before many coffee robot companies.

More importantly, robots will not replace baristas, but only reshape the division of labor in the coffee industry: machines take on repetitive standardized work, humans focus on communication, R&D and service. Technology is only a means to serve consumers, not an end.

Only when the convenience brought by technology is combined with high-repeat-purchase products and mature user operations can the coffee robot move from a short-term trend to a long-term sustainable business format. And this “efficiency revolution” triggered by robotic arms can be truly grounded.

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1. This article was edited and compiled by Coffeeyo.com and reproduced from Chuangye Zuiqianxian (Entrepreneurship Frontline), “The Robot Coffee Track Backed by a Former Xiaomi Executive Aims to Challenge Luckin with 100,000 Stores”. Copyright of the original text belongs to its author and the original publisher. This reproduction is for coffee industry information sharing only and does not represent the position of this site; all data and views are subject to the original. Thanks to the original author for the creation and sharing.
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