AI monitors the Walmart store in real time
LEVITTOWN, N.Y. – Who keeps up the store? In the not too distant future, there may be cameras and sensors that tell almost immediately when blown bananas must be replaced for fresh and multiple cash registers must be opened before the lines become too long.
Walmart, facing fierce competition from Amazon and other online stores, is experimenting with digitizing its physical stores to handle them more effectively, keeping costs under control and making shopping more enjoyable. On Thursday, the retail giant opened its intelligent Retail Lab in a 50,000-square-foot convenience store in Long Island.
Thousands of ceilings suspended from the ceiling, combined with other technology like shelving sensors, will monitor the store in real time, allowing workers to quickly fill up products or fix other issues.
The technology, first shown to The Associated Press, will also be able to see waste, track when shelves need to be refilled and know when shopping carts are running low. For example, cameras can determine how mature bananas are from color, and workers will be notified on their phones if they need to be replaced.
Walmart's dive into artificial intelligence in its physical store comes as Amazon raised the stakes in the grocery store with its purchase of Whole Foods Market nearly two years ago.
More pressure is put on Walmart and other traditional dealers such as Kroger and Albert's to cash in on technology in their stores. At the same time, they try to keep food prices down and manage expenses. Amazon has rolled out cashier-less Amazon Go stores, which have shelf sensors that track the 1[ads1]000 products on the shelves.
Walmart's US online sales are still a fraction of Amazon's online global merchandise empire, which reached $ 122.98 billion last year. But Walmart says more than 140 million US customers visit a store personally or online per week, creating a treasure trove of data. In the last fiscal year ending January 31, Walmart generated more than $ 500 billion in global sales globally.
Walmart hopes to start scaling some of the new technology into other stores over the next six months, with an eye to lower costs and thus lower prices. As the shopping experience improves, the dealer expects to see higher sales.
"We really like to think of this store as an artificial intelligence factory, a place where we build these products, experiences, where we test and learn," said Mike Hanrahan, CEO of Walmart Intelligent Retail Lab and co-founder of Jet. com, purchased by Walmart three years ago.
Hanrahan says the cameras are programmed to focus primarily on products and shelves right now. Sensors built into shelves will give the store extra information because they know what is behind the shelves that the cameras cannot see.
Cameras do not recognize faces, determine the ethnicity of a person who fetches a product or tracks the movement of buyers, he says.
Some other companies have recently started experimenting with store shelf cameras trying to guess the consumer's age, gender and mood.
There are signs throughout the neighboring market that educate buyers on how it is used as a laboratory. However, the cameras can increase privacy concerns.
"Machine learning finds fundamental and consistent patterns," says Steven M. Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University and a privacy expert who has not seen the new Walmart AI Lab. But he says companies are in trouble when they begin to match behavior to a particular customer.
Hanrahan says that Walmart has taken care to protect the consumer's privacy and emphasized that there are no cameras in the pharmacy, in front of the rest rooms or in work breaks.
The lab is Walmart's second in a physical store. Last year, Walmarts Sam's Club opened a 32,000-square-meter laboratory store, a quarter of the size of a typical Sam's Club. The lab tests new features that surround the Scan & Go app, allowing customers to scan items while shopping, and then purchase from their phones, skipping the box.
The detail project is the third project from Walmart's new incubation arm, created after the Jet.com acquisition as a way of discourse to shape the future of retail.
It follows the launch of Jetblack, a texting service aimed at wealthy customers in New York. Walmart's second incubation project was Spatial &, a VR tech company. As part of the launch, it brings followers to some of Walmart's car parks, allowing customers to experience DreamWorks Animations "How to Train Your Dragon" through virtual reality.
Hanrahan says the company is embracing the labs in the stores to better understand the real ways in which technology affects customers and employees. It also wants to educate customers. Walmart has made a point of not hiding the technology, and small educational kiosks are set up throughout the neighboring market. Shoppers can peer through a glass of closed data center at the back of the store. It houses nine cooling towers, 100 servers and other computer equipment that processes all the data.
Despite the signs and visible cameras, many customers, including Marcy Seinberg from Wantagh, New York, did not seem to notice or care. 19659002] "I'm not bothered by it," Seinberg said. "If technology saves money, I'll be interested."
A Walmart employee arranges items on a shelf at a Walmart Neighborhood Market on Wednesday in Levittown, NY. The cameras suspended above are an important feature of a living laboratory inside this 50,000 square foot store. Walmart anticipates using these cameras in combination with other technology as shelving sensors to get the best picture of what's happening in the store in real time, allowing workers to respond quickly to filling up the products or solving other issues.
A customer pulls his shopping cart past an information kiosk at a Walmart Neighborhood Market on Wednesday in Levittown, N.Y. Kiosks and signs throughout the store, keep customers aware that they shop in an artificial intelligence factory.
