Robots are everywhere in Charlotte

What’s happening: Robots are now being used as security guards in an Uptown tower and to deliver our coffee in Plaza Midwood — and this is just the beginning.

Let’s meet the characters.

“Parker” the security bot

Details: Parker is a security robot that patrols the outside of Uptown’s Ally Bank building and in its parking garage. It’s about 5 foot 3, weighs about 400 pounds and poses in about 10-15 selfies a day, Ally spokesperson Peter Gilchrist tells me.

• Parker isn’t the robot’s official name, but it seems to be the one that’s stuck, according to reporting by WBTV.
• The robot is also called “Little E” because his operator’s first name is Eric.
• The robot is build by California-based Knightscope.

Why it matters: This robot can alert the building’s security team if something happens like a car break-in, a stolen bike or vandalism. There’s also a button on it that people can press in an event of an emergency.

What’s next: Ally is looking to add more robots like “Parker” to their other buildings elsewhere in the country.

• Ally also uses two additional robots inside the building that monitor the interior for any possible suspicious activity.

Geoffrey the coffee bot

Details: You’ve probably seen the boxy pink robots with heart eyes rolling through Plaza Midwood. Those are part of a fleet of human-operated, coffee-delivering machines as part of a partnership with Toronto-based Tiny Mile and Charlotte’s Undercurrent Coffee.

How it works: Right now it’s still a pilot program so availability is limited. You’ll mostly see the bots in Plaza Midwood, but recently they’ve been seen in other areas of Charlotte like Uptown. Maybe one day more of us can get our coffee delivered by “Geoffrey.”

1 cool thing: Charlotte is the first place Tiny Mile is testing its bots.

Zoom out: These may be two of the most visible robot projects happening in Charlotte right now, but Charlotte Ledger reports, there’s much more happening in this space.

• In Davidson, officials are working to get self-driving busses on the road.
• In Kannapolis, the autonomous drone company Zipline plans to soon deliver medication to locals via its drones. Zipline is already up and running in Northwest Arkansas, where our Axios colleagues have written about them.