While Atomic staffer, Susan Pammer, was observing Lucy the Robot, she had an idea – what if you could do a blind date without having to actually be there?

Could the future of contemporary dating involve sending a robot to test drive eligible suitors?

Susan went on her first date with James Deiley on Wednesday the September 13, but instead of showing up in person, she arranged to experience the encounter via the Atomic 212° robot. James was greeted at the table at Merivale’s Uccello, by her humanoid telepresence device and the two spent a virtual evening together while Susan stayed in.

“After witnessing what Atomic did with Lucy the Robot, I thought this was the basis for an interesting social experiment. I pitched the idea to our CEO, Jason Dooris, and he was happy for me to run with it. This is a testament to the agency, who have been kind enough to provide the resources and have allowed me to develop this cool idea for the purpose of innovation,” Pammer stated.

“We’re an independent agency that nurtures creativity. I was thrilled that Susan approached me with the idea to use the robot for the sake of doing something new. Susan is an up and coming industry young-gun and I am curious to see where this experiment will go,” Dooris added.

Atomic 212°’s creative thinking is continuing to transform the agency, with staff moving into newly created roles and a series of new business divisions across media, digital, data, content and creative. Susan Pammer is the office manager at Atomic.

“With the rise of technology and broader Web 2.0, the media industry is constantly evolving, and I was interested in applying these same principals of change to the concept of dating,” Pammer continued.

“We initially met online and a mutual friend organised the blind date. I was intrigued from the get go…dating a robot seemed pretty far-fetched and futuristic,” James Deiley commented.