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When it comes to commercial fuel services, drivers are very familiar with interacting with retail staff when they deliver their products. However, when it comes to the future, drivers may find themselves interacting with fewer humans and more robots.

As artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics improve, their use is becoming more apparent in everyday life. Whether it’s the self-checkout sections in convenience stores or the machines powering the navigation system for your fleet, the influence of technology is very much among us. Although it’s easy to spot robots at work in certain scenarios, such as convenience store checkout machines, some of them are invisible to the everyday person, such as those which perform simulation modeling across a retail supply chain.

Along with many other industries, the convenience store space is slowly adapting to the use of robotics. Although Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have got into publicized Twitter conversations about the AI’s potential to help or harm humanity, many retailers have shown it to be cost-effective and efficient. What does this mean for convenience stores? Robotics and AI won’t be going away any time soon.

Robots Improve Convenience for Customers in C-Stores

It’s all in the name – “convenience” store. Robotics and AI have the power to optimize the convenience that customers experience when visiting their favorite store, streamlining labor and enhancing customer service. The robots are also beneficial for the company itself, upselling products and providing them with a wealth of data that allows them to make well-informed business decisions going forward.

How Robots are Impacting Employment Opportunities

Of course, this could spell trouble for employment opportunities, with businesses such as Amazon and McDonald’s already employing advanced robotics to help combat rises in their employees’ wages. Robotics only become cheaper over time, requiring pennies’ worth of electricity every hour to run. People, on the other hand, are demanding more money as the cost of living skyrockets exponentially.

Robots Taking Over Operations, Logistics, and Customer Service

Walmart and Amazon have been beginning to employ drones and robots as part of their logistics, allowing them to reduce costs and improve customer service. Although this can seem like brilliant futurism on the surface, it threatens to widen the poverty gap. It also has the potential to throw the world into future economic problems we are not ready to deal with since AI and robots could lead to mass unemployment.

Although commercial fuel services are likely to be unaffected in the foreseeable future, they are certainly likely to work with more retailers who are being slowly taken over by robots.

At McPherson Oil, we still believe in the power of human relationships. Our team of professionals has decades of experience in the fueling industry. Contact us today to learn more about our commercial fuel services.

About: McPherson Oil is proud to distribute ExxonMobil products in the southeast including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida Panhandle, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.