Starbucks is looking at ways to recognize customers when they walk in, CEO Brian Niccol said on an earnings call.
His words were that the company is "exploring experiences that recognize participating customers as they arrive." Niccol named no pilot stores, launch date or technology in that line, and he did not say "facial" at all. Facial recognition is one reading of the quote, not something he said.
Three words carry the weight. "Participating" points to an opt-in program rather than scanning everyone who enters. "Recognize" could mean a face, but it could just as easily mean a phone, an app or a loyalty ID, and the quote does not choose. "Exploring" is about the mildest verb an executive can use on an earnings call: it commits the company to looking, not to building.
The technology question is the one that decides how this lands with customers. A phone signal can be turned off and a loyalty account can be closed. A face is not something a customer can reset, so a face-based system would have to earn trust that an app-based one would not.
The open questions are the basic ones: what "recognize" means in practice, how customers would sign up, and whether anything beyond an earnings-call phrase exists yet.