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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Good Housekeeping

Why Subtle Tech and Countertop Appliances, Not Robots, Are Driving Kitchen Innovation

For much of the past couple of decades, talk of the future kitchen at CES has conjured tech-forward images of robotic arms sautéing vegetables, humanoids flipping burgers, and, more recently, AI-powered assistants hovering over the stove. But during a conversation I had with a panel of kitchen insiders a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas at The Spoon’s Food Tech conference, they made a compelling case that the future of cooking looks slightly more mundane, yet far more useful.

I was joined by Robin Liss, CEO of Suvie; Jonathan Blutinger, senior design engineer at Smart Design; and Nicole Papantoniou, director of the Kitchen Appliances Lab at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Together, they painted a picture of a near-term kitchen future shaped less by futuristic robots and more by quiet, behind-the-scenes intelligence.

To set the table (sorry), I started the conversation by asking where we’ve actually been over the last decade when it comes to the smart kitchen. Papantoniou said a core mistake made by early smart kitchen products was trying to solve problems consumers did not actually have. “A lot of people were putting smart features into products that you didn’t really need,” she said. “I don’t think people understood why they needed Alexa to make coffee for them.” Instead, she argued, success today comes from friction reduction. “It’s becoming way easier, very seamless, and people use it without even realizing it now”.

That shift toward subtlety was echoed by Blutinger, who said many early smart kitchen products were over-engineered. “Just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should,” he said. “It should be coming from a human need”.

Slap Some AI on It

A huge percentage of booths at this year’s CES claimed their product was AI-powered, which had me wondering whether today’s market risks repeating the mistakes of the smart kitchen a few years ago, when everyone was “slapping Wi-Fi on everything.” Liss argued that AI today is fundamentally different from the Wi-Fi-first era of connected appliances. “Almost all these products have embedded software or cloud-connected software,” she said. “The way we look at AI is it’s not some all-encompassing model… it’s integrations into steps of the process”.

Blutinger said AI’s biggest problem may be the overuse of the term by marketers, and that while the AI-ification of products is inevitable, both the label and the tech will eventually recede into the background. “That word alone has created such a stigma around it,” he said. “The technology should not be upfront and personal. It should be invisible in a sense”.

Papantoniou agreed, predicting consumer acceptance will likely be higher once AI fades into the background. “Once people stop advertising that it’s AI and it’s just part of the normal product, it’ll be way more accepted”.

Hold the Humanoids

As with my other session at CES focused on food robots, I asked the panelists when, if ever, we’d see humanoid robots walking around our kitchens. And just as with that other panel, they were skeptical.
“I still think that’s really soon for us to be seeing it in the home kitchen,” said Papantoniou. “Five years is soon”.

Liss said the adoption of food robots in the home would hinge on safety and practicality. “Food is inherently dangerous, and kitchen appliances dealing with high heat are inherently dangerous,” she said, noting that even in commercial settings, “getting the robot not to hurt the workers around it… that’s the hard part”.

Instead of humanoids, the panel advocated task-specific automation.
“We are designed as humans to do so many range of tasks,” said Blutinger. “Like we have to be perfect for so many things. It’s not like cooking takes up 100% of our time. So if we’re trying to optimize for just automation in the kitchen, why do we need these complex articulated (robot) arms doing things? Why not just have like a simple little one degree of freedom rotating thing that just rotates our sauce?”

Why Countertop Appliances Keep Winning

Despite talk of built-in, do-everything cooking boxes, the panelists agreed that innovation will continue to favor specialized countertop devices.

“I would say that probably the reason you’re seeing so many, the proliferation of lots of little countertop appliances, which makes me very happy, is because the innovation is happening there,” said Liss. “And frankly, if you look at the breakout companies, the stock performance of Breville, Shark Ninja, are, you know, Breville is larger than Whirlpool, Shark Ninja is many multiples larger than Whirlpool. It’s because all of the innovation is happening on the countertop because of that replacement cycle challenge of major appliances.”

Papantoniou was blunt about the trade-offs that come with multifunction. “There is that stigma that multifunctional appliances don’t do everything well. And while it’s gotten a lot better, I would say like an air fryer function in an oven is not going to compete with your basket air fryer.”

The Future of The Kitchen Has More Personalization and Less Friction

For my final question, I asked the panelists to look ahead and describe what they see for the kitchen over the next few years, and it was clear they were aligned around a quieter vision of progress.

Papantoniou predicted broader adoption as fear subsides. “People are adopting it more and not being so scared of it and not judging it as harshly, I think, as they did in the past. I think people actually do want their coffee maker to start working while they’re still in their bedroom. So I think that’s gonna just be coming more,” she said.

Blutinger focused on usability. “I think just reduce friction in the kitchen. That’s the biggest thing if you’re trying to innovate in the kitchen space.”

Liss closed with a vision for the future centered on humans, not robots. “I think it’s healthier, more personalized food, cooked how you want it. You’re getting to spend, most importantly, is families getting to spend time with each other happily enjoying meals for those everyday weeknight meals rather than spending an hour, mom spending an hour prepping the food or wasting money on really expensive delivery, right? It’s like a better life for people because they’re eating healthy, good food at home, saving money, and spending time with their loved ones.”

You can watch the full session below.

CES 2026: The Kitchen of the Future: AI, Robotics & Smart Tech

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Behind The Scenes at Good Housekeeping With Nicole Papantoniou

Last month I was in New York City, so I decided to drop and visit the Good Housekeeping Institute. I went to visit Nicole Papantoniou, the director of the Kitchen Appliances Lab at Good Housekeeping, who had promised to give me a tour of the place.

If you haven’t visited Good Housekeeping Institute, it’s great because – aside from having one of the best possible views of Midtown Manhattan perched from its location on the 29th floor of the Hearst Building – it’s a cool hybrid of a newsroom meets testing lab, with appliances like air fryers, espresso makers, induction tops and ice cream makers piled high on surfaces everywhere.

“We’re using these items basically the way someone would use them in their home,” Nicole told me on the most recent episode of The Spoon Podcast. “Being able to compare things side by side and then understand the ease of use features, we really get a good understanding of how the product works.”

If you grew up hearing about the Good Housekeeping Seal like me, there’s a reason: for the past century, the publication and the institute helped pioneer consumer product testing. From the time Hearst bought in 1911 until the 1960s, it became a household name, and over the next half century, hitting 5 million in circulation by the 60s.

“In the early 1900s is basically when products were coming to the market and the team members were like, there’s no one really regulating it,” said Nicole. “So really trying to explain to consumers what they should be buying, what they can trust. And that’s what the good housekeeping seal is.”

In a way, being in the Good Housekeeping Lab felt like going back in time. From the different dedicated testing area for appliances, fabrics, and other household items to a full-fledged test kitchen, it was such a big departure from the current way in which most products reviews get generated in 2025, where influencers often will try something out or just see it online and give a review of the product.

According to Nicole, the reviews are around a seasonal rolling calendar which mirrors consumer behavior. “We work three months in advance on print and digital,” she said. “Think of summer… people are going to be searching for ice cream makers. And then think of also Q4, Black Friday, the holidays.”

Some categories, like air fryers, never sleep, while others resurge and periodically come back (stand mixers and bread makers). They also spin up new sub-categories as products evolve.

“We had our espresso maker story forever,” said Nicole. “But now there’s a lot of all-in-one espresso machines. You press your button, you get your cappuccino like you would in a office.”

On the podcast, I asked Nicole how she ended up with such a cool gig. According to her, she had gone to journalism school and knew she wanted to work in magazines, but the inspiration to fuse food and journalism all started with an internship.

“My first internship was at Ladies Home Journal. And I remember going into the test kitchen and someone was grilling pineapple and like candying walnuts. And I was like, how do I get that job?”

From there, she went to culinary school at night while working full time, then moved into brand-side roles. “I ended up at Cuisinart, developing products with them and recipes and helping edit user guides, and then ended up Family Circl and then here at Good Housekeeping.”

She told me that brand experience shaped how she evaluates products today. “When you’re working at a brand, you’re working with so many different departments. An engineer will come up with something really exciting and then you kind of have to hone it in and let them know like, this might not work in like a real consumer’s kitchen.”

I asked her if she had any advice for those looking to get into a similar line of work.

“I think, honestly, getting as much experience as you can with people who are in the field, saying yes to things, taking on different experiences,” she said. “At one point I was working for, like, four different jobs at once… but I loved it. Be nice, and say yes and then you’ll find what you’re looking for. Also don’t be afraid to walk away. There’s a lot out there.”

If you want to listen to my full conversation wtih Nicole you can click play below or find it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Good Housekeeping: Connected Devices Should Be “So Easy Even an Adult Can Do It”

Last week I wanted to defrost a few chicken breasts. I took them out of the freezer, shoved them in the microwave, and programmed it to run for 4 minutes at power level 7. Sure, there’s a “defrost” button on my microwave, and it even has a setting for poultry. But I’ve never quite figured out how to use it.

At the Smart Kitchen Summit in October in Seattle, Good Housekeeping’s Sharon Franke argued that ease of use is the central barrier to adoption for any cooking device, in particular a connected one.

A survey conducted by Good Housekeeping found that 63 percent of people say it would be helpful to have recipes programmed into cooking devices. But Franke pointed out that slow cookers, ranges, and countertop ovens have had those capabilities for years. “Microwave ovens with sensor technology and combination cooking have been around for about 30 years but it’s rare that anyone uses anything but the number pads or a minute plus,” she said. She attributes the problem to small buttons, hard-to-find recipes, and small screens. If these new devices are as intuitive as an iPhone, though, things could change, she said, citing Innit and Whirlpool’s connected oven as an example.

Franke’s point reminds me of Con Edison’s new slogan: “Our app is so easy to use, even an adult can do it.” Its app simply lets customers pay their bill, check payment histories, and send meter readings to the company: not brain surgery, by any means.

Similarly, ease of use is vital for connected devices: Without the app letting you know that you need to, for example, physically hit the “start” button on the device itself, no one will ever use these products in real life. Sure, it’s neat to have an oven that will set the ideal temperature and tell you when your ribs are finished cooking, but if it doesn’t work without an IT team on the phone and isn’t fun to use, forget about it.

In other words, “the future is not just about convenience or mechanics of cooking,” Franke said. “It has to be about the whole experience too.”