Watch out, bartenders: your jobs might be next on the AI chopping block \u2014 at least if tech startup Breakreal has anything to say about it.<\/p>\n
With CES 2026 in full-swing, tech insiders and industry journalists are getting a first-hand look at the madcap gadgets that research and development teams are forcing into the world. One of those devices is the Breakreal R1, a cocktail dispenser that its creators say is imbued with the power of a large language model.<\/p>\n
A first-hand look at the device from Gizmodo\u2018s James Pero<\/a> reveals what we can probably all intuit: the device is no match for a human bartender.<\/p>\n For starters, the liquid possibilities are pretty limited. Though the Breakreal website brags that R1\u2019s \u201cLLM-powered intelligence\u2026 distills your cravings into bespoke generative recipes\u201d via \u201cunlimited AI generated recipes,\u201d the device can only hold eight cocktail ingredients at a time.<\/p>\n Consider a scenario where you load up ingredients to pump out a Manhattan \u2014 rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, and bitters \u2014 as well as a Vesper, which calls for gin, vodka, and\u00a0Lillet Blanc. You only have two extra chambers left for auxiliary ingredients, and those first six don\u2019t exactly blend well with each other.<\/p>\n The R1 is also \u201ca bit slow,\u201d Pero reports, taking 20 to 40 seconds to spit out a cocktail, some of which was leaking \u201cout of the arm of the machine and not the nozzle.\u201d<\/p>\n