Luna Pepper is a fast learner. Every day she is programmed with new information so that she can communicate better with humans. The female robot on duty in a German bank welcomes customers, chats with them about the weather, and even tells jokes.
“Please don’t be angry if I don’t know everything yet,” the 1.20-metre-tall lady robot will say from time to time, looking up with big, round, gleaming eyes. “If you’re satisfied, then so am I.”
Customers of the bank in northern Germany get a chuckle out of this.  The head of the bank branch, Alexander Loede, is proud of his new employee. “She supports us in word and deed,” he says of the machine. Encountering Luna Pepper is a special experience for everyone.
In Germany, robots used for customer relations are still a rarity. The German machinery industry association VDMA notes that humanoid robots, those with human-like figures, have so far been used primarily for research purposes and at trade fairs. But they are not yet widely used as a fixed part of companies’ service concept, notes Patrick Schwarzkopf, VDMA’s robotics and automation division head.
But “they are on the way,” he adds. “I believe that humanoid robots that move about on wheels will soon be mature enough for the market.”
Humanoid robots are very useful in answering customer questions about a certain product. “In the next five years, many people will have seen a robot,” Schwarzkopf predicts.
In early 2018, travellers passing through the Munich airport had the chance to talk with a colleague of Luna. As in Bremen, the Munich airport chose the Pepper model of the Japanese firm SoftBank Robotics and likewise gave it a female identity by the name of Josie Pepper.
Airport officials say communications did not always go smoothly. “One of the biggest challenges was that people are not yet used to talking with a robot,” Project Head Julia Schmidt says. “People took pictures with the robot, but they did not trust it to answer a genuine question.” But Schmidt still drew a positive conclusion from the fact that, overall, Josie was a hit with those at the airport. 
At the moment, the Munich airport is using Josie Pepper for events. As guest of honour, she answers visitors’ questions. “We continue to be engaged in robotics and artificial intelligence,” Schmidt said.
It’s still not yet clear whether the robot will be there again for passengers in the future, with Schmidt saying that at the moment, the question as to which areas Josie offers the most value needs clarifying.
A bank in Munich has had a robot, this time a male robot named Monaco Pepper, in operation since the start of 2018, its job being to explain digital services to customers. Monaco Pepper can also engage in small talk, bank spokesman Joachim Froehler says.
“He has gone down very well with our customers,” he says. Froehler believes that Monaco’s areas of operation will be expanded. “There is a lot of room [for further development]. Artificial intelligence is a topic that will increasingly occupy us in society,” Froehler said.
The Bremen bank has a lot of aims with its Luna, which cost around 20,000 euros (23,000 dollars), not including the programming.
Initially it will be outfitted with laser sensors and then learn to move around, branch manager Loede says. There might, for example, be a case of Luna waiting in the entrance hall to welcome a customer arriving for an appointment and then notifying the bank employee involved. Helping foreigners in their language can also be a possibility, with Luna to be programmed for English, Russian and Turkish. “If Luna knows foreign languages, we can take her along into the meeting and she will translate,” Loede says.
All this will be possible thanks to software inside the robot’s head.
VDMA robotics expert Schwarzkopf adds that he sees no special security risks in all this. “It’s a question of IT security, which does not differ so very much from other IT applications,” he says.
As with other technology, with intelligent robots it is also required that data are so well protected, they cannot be hacked. – DPA