At this coffee meetup for young people, let's explore what new possibilities "Coffee + AI" can spawn.

The faster the urban pace is, the more coffee acts as a "daily switch" for young people. They rely on coffee to get through the daytime, and coffee shops become spaces for meeting friends, taking photos, walking cats, bringing children along and visiting markets on weekends.

Apart from the trends of "coffee in daytime and alcohol at night" and "milk tea becoming coffee-flavored", coffee consumption is spawning more new combinations: coffee + baking, coffee + pets, coffee + museums, coffee + markets, coffee + cultural and creative products. Some people spend only 9.9 yuan to get their daily caffeine intake, while others are willing to queue for half an hour for a cup of hand-brewed coffee.

Coffee is increasingly integrated into daily life, but young people's expectations for coffee are far from ordinary. Exquisite online content determines which store they will step into, and the offline consumption experience determines how long they are willing to stay and whether they will come back next time.

Different offline coffee scenarios are also exploring their own survival modes: community coffee shops are embedded in the living radius of residents, forming revisit rates relying on regular customers and daily habits; themed cat cafes integrate pet socialization and emotional value into their space; "popular science coffee shops" in museums and science and technology museums have become carriers of popular science experiences and museum IP cultural and creative products; coffee festivals gather coffee, art, markets and youth culture together, creating urban topics and purposeful visits in a short period of time.

Starting from a cup of coffee and spanning six years, the Ningbo Coffee Life Week IP, hosted by Zhejiang Yunchuang Weilai Group, continues to deliver wonderful experiences. The activities in the first half of the year have been launched at Jihe Plaza, and the special additional event in the second half of the year, the "Wind from Southwest China" series, will be held at Yunchuang Zheli Youth Kingdom from October 30 to November 1. The event integrates markets, youth co-creation and intangible cultural heritage experiences, blending coffee, food and art into the daily life of the city. Countless store operators and brands meet here, sowing the "fireworks of coffee" into the streets and alleys of Ningbo, growing outward from the local roots, and becoming a unique cultural tourism mark related to coffee in the Yangtze River Delta region.

From coffee beans to a cup of coffee, from an online sharing session to offline check-in, behind the consumption behavior of a cup of coffee lies the iteration and evolution of the entire industrial chain, as well as the interactive innovation between offline physical scenarios and online digital marketing.

Coffee consumption is presenting two parallel trends: on the one hand, it is becoming more affordable and daily, making coffee a high-frequency rigid demand; on the other hand, it is becoming more experience-oriented and content-rich, with specialty stores run by independent operators, community stores, pet-friendly stores, museum coffee shops, coffee festivals and markets constantly creating reasons for people that they "have to drink coffee". For blocks, what they really need is not just one more coffee shop, but new consumption formats that can bring new experiences, new passenger flows, are easy to spread and can attract repeated visits.

At the same time, AI is entering the coffee industrial chain. Intelligent order taking, unmanned coffee retail, AI baristas, coffee robot operation and maintenance, AI roasting... What has been reconstructed is not only the production efficiency, but also job competencies, training systems and youth employment directions. AI does not just come to take the latte art jug from baristas, it is spawning new types of jobs: who will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of coffee robots? Who will design AI roasting curves? Who will train new talents who know both coffee and relevant equipment? These questions have moved from concepts into physical stores and classrooms.

In the afternoon of October 31 (Saturday), the "AiPartner Brings AI to the Front Line — Ningbo Coffee Life Week Scenario Innovation Exchange Meeting" will be held at Yunchuang Zheli Youth Kingdom, Shounan Sub-district, Yinzhou District, Ningbo.

This event is guided by the Yinzhou District Development and Reform Bureau, jointly hosted by the Shounan Sub-district Office, 36Kr and Yunchuang Weilai Group, and co-organized by the Li Dashan Incubation Park of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. Positioned as the scenario innovation industry exchange session within the coffee festival, the event focuses on the two major directions of consumption and talent training, taps into scenario innovation opportunities, and promotes the implementation of new technologies and new products in Yunchuang Zheli Youth Kingdom and Shounan Sub-district.

Consumption upgrading and youth employment are the two starting points for this scenario exploration. The event adopts a "double roundtable" format, with two roundtable sessions, one focusing on "people" and the other focusing on "scenarios":

The first roundtable focuses on 「AI + New Vocational Talent Training for the Whole Coffee Industrial Chain」—

• After AI enters the coffee industrial chain, which links in the whole chain have been reconstructed and where are the competency gaps?
• After the combination of AI and coffee, how will the role of traditional baristas change?
• How to define the competency models for new types of jobs such as AI baristas, coffee robot operation and maintenance, and AI roasting?

From classroom learning to practical training on coffee robots, we have invited Yao Jincheng, initiator of the Meke AI Project, Liang Xiangbing, Investment Director of Ningbo Yongcheng Asset Management Co., Ltd., and Chang Lu, CIO of Luhui Group, hoping to push the talent training of "AI + coffee" from concepts to operable courses and actual jobs.

The 40,000-square-meter commercial street, youth night market and entrepreneurial market of Yunchuang are looking for new digital consumption formats such as intelligent coffee retail, museum IP co-branding, and human-pet friendly spaces. Taking the "AI Barista" experience zone as the entry point, we will form a link of "AI experience — consumption conversion — merchant passenger flow attraction", allowing local store operators and technology providers to connect on site.

The second roundtable focuses on 「Youth Digital Consumption Scenarios and Block Vitality Enhancement」, and we will discuss the following topics with Lv Jiacai, Partner of Yihan Culture, Chen Zhi, Founder of Zhonglele Coffee Art Festival, Xu Jiamu, Operator of Daily Coffee, and Yuan Jianfeng, Operator of LeBRESSO —

• In which real scenarios can AI coffee and new coffee formats be implemented?
• Apart from coffee, what impact does the content on digital platforms have on the passenger flow of coffee shops?
• From "check-in visitors" to "regular customers", what do store operators rely on to form sustained consumption popularity for their brands?
• In a block scenario, how can different "content species" jointly build a vibrant youth consumption ecosystem?

We hope this exchange event will be more like a "scenario laboratory". On this autumn weekend afternoon, we will not talk about grand narratives, let go of FOMO emotions, drink coffee, listen to store operators talk about block operation, and watch robots make coffee, allowing equipment providers, training providers and block operators to communicate with each other, to see which new formats can truly be implemented.

Let a cup of coffee become a "light entry point" connecting young people, industries and blocks, and that is enough.