Meet Pepper, the £23,000 robot that can speak 19 languages working as a guide at a Belgian hospital

Pepper is tasked with introducing visitors to the hospital, providing information and showing visitors and patients to the correct floor and room.





They are already set to replace human surgeons for complex operations , now a Belgian hospital has started to use a robot that can speak 19 different languages.



Pepper, who has started work at Ostend hospital AZ Damiaan as a receptionist, cost an eye-watering £23,000 and was designed by Belgian company Zora Bots.

It is able to introduce visitors to the hospital, provide information and guide visitors and patients to the correct floor and room.

With a speed of just 3 km/h (1.8 mph), Pepper is also able to guide slower patients. Fully charged, it can work for up to 20 hours on its own.

Pepper can speak 19 languages and is designed to act as a hospital guide

"It is a quite nice robot and the reactions are positive for the moment."

During the first week, Pepper was mainly used on the hospital’s maternity department.



Pepper is not the first robot used at the AZ Damiaan hospital , but it is the first to communicate with patients and to have the ability to guide them.

Before the arrival of Pepper, the staff had already worked with a predecessor, Zora, for about a year.

 Zora is smaller and slower than Pepper and used mainly in physical therapy classes.

At a price of just over £23,000, Pepper is expensive and so far, only Japanese customers have bought one for home use.