Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank opened its first retail space staffed only by robots on Thursday.
The pop up cellphone shop in Tokyo opened its doors with the help of 10 robots named Pepper.
Pepper, dubbed the world’s first emotional robot, was first introduced to the public in 2014 and sold out in one minute when it hit the commercial market a year later in Japan.
READ MORE: ‘Pepper’ the emotional robot sells out in a minute in Japan
SoftBank says the Peppers will greet and assist customers around their store, which was initially set to stay open for a week but was extended to 30 days.
In January, SoftBank CEO Ken Miyauchi told the Japan Times, “I don’t know how this will turn out, but it should be a quite interesting experiment.”
Miyauchi said humanoid robots like Pepper present a solution to the labour shortages facing many Japanese companies.
He added that over 500 companies are currently using Pepper to interact with customers.
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