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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cashierless checkout

Imagr Pushes its Smart Cart Cashierless Checkout to the APAC Region

Let’s just get this out of the way. Imagr is not Imagur. Imagr is a New Zealand-based startup angling to bring its smart cart, cashierless shopping solution to grocery, convenience and other stores across the Asia Pacific region. Imagur is an online library of cute/funny gifs. Since we are a publication covering the future of food, you can probably guess which one we’ll be writing about here.

There are two main camps when it comes to cashierless checkout at retail. in one camp, you have companies like Grabango and Zippin, which install hardware (cameras and sensors) and software (computer vision and AI) inside a store to automatically keep track of what people purchase.

In the other camp, you have companies like Imagr, which push all that technology down into the shopping cart and basket to monitor what shoppers place in them.

There is no “better” solution and each has its advantages. Retrofitting a store provides less “friction” for shoppers (they literally just grab an item and go), but retrofitting a store can be costly, especially for large stores. Smart cart solutions don’t require any installation, but do require shoppers to use the designated carts and baskets.

Execs at Imagr gave me a video demo of its smart carts in action this week, and they work pretty much as you’d expect. A shopper downloads the Imagr app, and scans a barcode on the special Imagr basket (and forthcoming full-sized cart). The baskets have a ring of cameras and lights that use computer vision to identify items placed inside. Consumers shop as they normally would with the Imagr app on their phone keeping a tally. When it comes time to check out, a human checkout clerk scans a barcode on the shopper’s phone to complete the transaction.

In that workflow, you may notice that the process isn’t entirely cashierless, as there is a person who checks shoppers out. Imagr said that the reason for this was to increase its speed to market. By keeping the cashier in place for now, they can get the rest of its technology into stores.

Speed to market seems to be an overriding ethos for Imagr, which has foresaken some of the extra bells and whistles you might expect to find on a smart cart. Unlike rival smart cart companies like Caper, Veeve and Amazon, Imagr’s smart carts do not have screens attached. Screens can provide in-store guidance, and upsell products to generate additional sales.

But Imagr told me that it purposely avoided adding screens to make its carts simpler to use, it didn’t want people to have to figure a new interface out. They also skipped the screen for privacy reasons (i.e. having an item that might be embarrassing in big letters on a screen that others might see), and because it was just one more thing that could break (like a bum wheel on a shopping cart).

Imagr is focused on the Asia Pacific region and is already live in three locations across Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, as well as Aukland, New Zealand. The company has a partnership H2O in Japan, which operates two grocery retail brands there, as well as two European retailers to be announced.

The Japanese market is turning into a hotbed for cashierless checkout. Softbank led a $30 million Series A round in Accel Robotics, Zippin recently partnered with Fujitsu to sell cahierless tech in Japan, and Imagr’s $9 million Series A round was led by Toshiba (Imagr has raised $12.5 million in total).

Interest in cashierless checkout was accelerated by the COVID pandemic, as retailers sought to reduce the amount of human-to-human interactions in their stores. But Japan has an added impetus for cashierless checkout because of its aging population, and the need to automate more of its labor force.

In other words, more retailers are going to be checking out cashierless checkout this year.

AiFi’s Cashierless Checkout Powers New 4,000 Sq. Ft. Store in Shanghai

AiFi announced today that its technology is powering a new cashierless checkout store in Shanghai. According to an email sent to The Spoon, the 4,000 sq. ft. store carries 2,000 SKUs including fresh meat and snacks, and is the largest such store powered by AiFi’s technology.

AiFi is perhaps best known for its standalone, shipping container-sized NanoStores, which offer pop-up cashierless retail experiences. With today’s launch, the company is showing that its technology can scale up (at least a bit) and be used for larger-format stores. The new AiFi-powered store in Shanghai is a “hybrid” store that also features a human cashier should shoppers prefer that option.

Casherless checkout allows shoppers to walk into a store, grab what they want and leave, getting charged automatically upon exit. The global pandemic has accelerated interest in cashierless checkout retail experiences because they help reduce human-to-human interaction, and can also cut down on the amount of time shoppers spend inside a store. Fellow cashierless startup Zippin announced yesterday that it has partnered with Fujitsu to bring its technology to market in Japan.

Unlike Zippin, which uses a combination of shelf sensors and computer vision for its cashierless checkout solution, AiFi relies solely on computer vision to track shoppers as they move through a store. Those computer vision capabilities could soon get a boost, thanks to a recent investment in the company from Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of the chip giant. As we wrote at the time of the fundraise:

That a Qualcomm entity would invest in AiFi isn’t too surprising. AiFi’s stores rely on a lot of wireless technology, and the startup’s pitch is that it creates a faster retail experience by producing shopping receipts in real time. But Qualcomm is also moving more into computer vision, which is a cornerstone of cashierless checkout. In July, Qualcomm announced a chip cluster that adds machine learning and AI to mid-tier cameras. So investing in a company that gets that tech into more locations makes sense.

And AiFi is certainly looking to get into more locations. AiFi says it has partnerships with top grocery chains in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Earlier this year, AiFi announced that it was going to deploy 330 new and retrofitted stores around the world by the end of 2021.

Fujitsu and Zippin Partner to Push Checkout-Free Solution in Japan

Fujitsu and Zippin announced today at a press conference that they are partnering to sell Zippin’s checkout-free technology solution in Japan. The deal makes Fujitsu the exclusive distributor of Zippin’s services in Japan, and the partnership could include expanded geographies at a later date.

Zippin’s technology uses a combination of shelf sensors, cameras, computer vision and artificial intelligence to create a cashierless checkout experience in physical stores. Once in the store, shoppers can grab what they want, walk out and get charged automatically upon exit. According to the press release sent to The Spoon, Fujitsu may add its own multi-biometric authentication layer to the final product it offers.

The Zippin and Fujitsu partnership comes following a pilot program the two completed with the Lawson convenience store chain in Japan earlier this year. That implementation used a palm reader for user authentication. Fujitsu will start offering Zippin’s technology in March of 2021 .

Interest in cashierless checkout has been accelerating this year as retailers look for ways to minimize human-to-human interaction during the ongoing global pandemic. On its face, cashierless checkout removes the need for shoppers to interact with a human cashier, reducing the amount of labor needed for a store. But the technology can also mean shoppers themselves spend less time inside the store. This means fewer people in the store at any given time.

Fujitsu is the latest giant company to get into the cashierless checkout game. The venture capital arm of chip giant Qualcomm recently invested in AiFi, which makes self-contained cashierless nanostores. And Mastercard has partnered with Accel Robotics to offer cashierless checkout services for customers like Circle K.

We put Zippin on our Food Tech 25 list earlier this year because it was doing interesting implementations including partial cashierless checkout for larger grocery stores. But over the course of the year, Zippin is proving it belongs on our list also because of its international ambitions. The company has a strategic investment from Brazil’s Lojas Americanos that includes deployments at the Ame Go convenience stores. The partial implementation mentioned earlier was at a Russian grocery market in Moscow.

Domestically, Zippin has been carving out a niche for itself at Stadiums, opening up convenience stores at the Golden 1 Arena in Sacramento and more recently at Mile High Stadium in Denver, CO.

Qualcomm Ventures Invests in AiFi for Autonomous Retail

AiFi, a startup that makes cashierless, autonomous retail environments, announced today that it has raised a new round of funding from new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Plum Alley as well as existing investors such as Cervin Ventures and TransLink Capital.

The amount of new funding was not disclosed, but the AiFi press announcement said the total amount raised by the company was now $30 million. As of last Friday, Crunchbase had AiFi’s funding at $15 million and listed Qualcomm Ventures as an investor for an undisclosed sum from back in August. So if we’re reading this correctly, it appears that the new round is $15 million.

But equally interesting as the funding is the investor, Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of mobile technology giant Qualcomm. The canned quote from Qualcomm in the press release said

“As intelligence continues to move from the cloud to the wireless edge and demand for contactless shopping grows, we are excited to be investing in AiFi,” said Carlos Kokron, VP Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Managing Director, Americas at Qualcomm Ventures. “We were very impressed with AiFi’s innovative edge-computing solutions and look forward to their technology helping accelerate the deployment of 5G.”

That a Qualcomm entity would invest in AiFi isn’t too surprising. AiFi’s stores rely on a lot of wireless technology, and the startup’s pitch is that it creates a faster retail experience by producing shopping receipts in real time. But Qualcomm is also moving more into computer vision, which is a cornerstone of cashierless checkout. In July, Qualcomm announced a chip cluster that adds machine learning and AI to mid-tier cameras. So investing in a company that gets that tech into more locations makes sense.

In addition to retrofitting existing stores, AiFi makes self-contained, autonomous, shipping container-sized nano-stores. The company says it will be deploying them to 330 locations around the world in 2021, and that it has partnerships with a number of top grocers across the U.S., Europe and Australia.

The pandemic has spurred interest in contactless technologies such as cashierless checkout. Caper just announced a countertop cashierless system for convenience stores. Grabango publicly launched its integration with Giant Eagle’s GetGo Market. Mastercard launched a cashierless checkout partnership with Accel Robotics. And AWM is powering a new cashierless market for a California apartment building.

For its part, AiFi said it will use the new funding to continue to develop its technology.

Giant Eagle Launches Cashierless Checkout Using Grabango’s Tech

Grabango announced today that its cashierless checkout technology is now publicly launched at grocery retailer Giant Eagle’s GetGo Cafe+Market. This is the first commercial launch for Grabango’s technology.

Giant Eagle announced its partnership with Grabango last July, though we didn’t know at that time how the technology would be implemented. The first location to use Grabango will be the GetGo Café+Market in Fox Chapel, which serves the Pittsburgh, PA area. At just 3,000 sq. ft, the GetGo space is smaller than a full-sized grocery store, which is an important detail since the cashierless checkout concept still faces questions around scalability and affordability.

To use the new cashierless checkout, GetGo customers will need to download the Grabango app for iOS or Android and connect it to a payment system (like a credit card). Once all that’s done, customers just enter the store like normal — there’s no check in or special turnstile to scan the phone. Shoppers grab what they want and cameras throughout the store keep track of what is picked up and put back (the system does not use facial recognition). When customers are done, the app generates a special code that is scanned on the way out which automatically applies the charges and sends a receipt.

Grabango is the latest cashierless checkout company to announce a public installation. Last week Mastercard announced a partnership with Accel Robotics for a cashierless checkout solution that will be used at Circle K and Dunkin stores. Zippin recently transformed part of a Azbuka Vkusa grocery store in Moscow into a cashierless experience. And earlier this year Amazon, which pioneered cashierless checkout, opened up its Go Grocery store in Seattle, which features the grab-and-go technology.

With the pandemic still in effect throughout the world, we will likely see more announcements like these in the coming months. Grocery stores have already put measures like plexiglass shields and pay terminal sterilizing in place to help protect customers and cashiers from the virus. Removing the human-to-human checkout process altogether is a natural extension of those protections. With the influx of grocery e-commerce those cashiers could be kept at work picking e-commerce orders and doing customer service.

In today’s press announcement, which was emailed to The Spoon, Grabango said that it has been deploying its checkout systems to “the world’s largest grocery and convenience store chains since early 2019,” so this is definitely not the last we’ve heard from them.

Mastercard Partners with Accel Robotics for Cashierless Checkout Retail

Mastercard. So worldly, so welcome, and now so contact-free. The global payments company today announced its Shop Anywhere and AI Powered Drive Through tools to help retailers create low-touch shopping experiences for consumers.

Mastercard’s ShopAnywhere program is using the AI and computer vision of Accel Robotics to create cashierless checkout for stores. According to the press release, Shop Anywhere can be deployed across a variety of physical formats. Mastercard has already lined up several Shop Anywhere customers including Circle K convenience stores in U.S. and Canada; Delaware North, a global hospitality company that operates at entertainment venues, national parks, resorts and more; and at a Dunkin’ location.

Accel Robotics is based in San Diego and raised $30 million in funding at the end of last year. The company has been relatively quiet compared with its cashierless competitors like Zippin, Grabango and Trigo. But what it lacks in showiness it has made up for with a large partner like Mastercard, which can leverage its massive presence to increase adoption of the Accel’s cashierless tech.

Mastercard’s other initiative, AI Powered Drive Through, is being implemented through partnerships with SoundHound Inc. and Rekor Systems. The program promises to help QSRs “transform their drive through or drive in interactions through vehicle recognition, voice ordering, and artificial intelligence.”

Part of that vehicle recognition technology used by Rekor involves the system knowing your license plate as well as make and model of car. Knowing who you are as you pull into the drive-thru lane means that an order can be rushed out to your car faster or a digital menu could offer up a personalized set of options based on your purchase history. That is, if you don’t mind the privacy implications of a restaurant chain knowing all about the car you drive.

Mastercard’s Drive Through builds on a partnership it had with Sonic Drive-In last year, and will being doing on-location pilots at White Castle locations in October of this year. While it didn’t mention Mastercard, KFC has hinted that it could adopt this type of technology as well.

Of course, Mastercard is announcing both of these initiatives during a global pandemic. As a result, many retailers are looking for ways to reduce human-to-human contact, and the number of touchpoints in stores, including things like touchscreens and even payment terminals where consumers swipe their credit cards. In other words, we’re going to see a lot more announcements similar to this in the coming months as we establish a new normal in a coronavirus world.

Tracxpoint’s Smart Carts Now Rolling Out at N. American Retailers

Remember back in the 90s when Hollywood kept releasing different movies about the same thing at the same time (think: Armageddon/Deep Impact in 1998).

Anyway, right now in the food tech world, everyone seems to be coming out with a smart shopping cart. In just this last month, we’ve covered Veeve, Storewide Active Intelligence (SAI) and Amazon’s Dash Cart (plus there’s Caper). Today, Tracxpoint added itself to the list by announcing its smart carts are now available for retailers in North America.

Tel-Aviv-based Tracxpoint creates a modular platform that can be retrofitted onto existing shopping carts with a combination of computer vision and a barcode scanner to automatically recognize products you put in (and take out) the cart. There is also an on-board touchscreen to display what you’re buying and navigate you around the store. Upon checkout, the shopper is automatically charged.

Tracxpoint isn’t a newcomer to the whole smart shopping cart space, however. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, European retailers, including the Conrad chain in Italy, already use Tracxpoint.

Like, well, everything today, the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating new trends in grocery retail, including contactless forms of payments to reduce human-to-human interactions. Hence so many companies rushing into the smart cart space.

Smart carts might be an easier sell for retailers looking to get into cashierless checkout because they don’t require big retrofits or buildouts of the stores themselves. Instead of installing cameras in the ceiling and sensors on the shelves, all of those capabilities can be pushed directly into the cart. And with Tracxpoint and SAI, retailers don’t even need to buy new carts. They just place the tech on their existing ones.

And while this pandemic certainly feels like Armageddon sometimes, smart cart technologies could make a deep impact in the way we grocery shop. [ed. note: Sorry]

SAI’s Smart Cart Tech Can Be Used to Check Up on Checkout Checkers

Smart shopping carts is the phrase of the week, evidently. Indeed, news stories of such carts that power cashierless checkout at grocery are popping up all over The Spoon recently. In just the past week we’ve covered Veeve and Amazon’s brand new Dash Cart, and today we add London-based Storewide Active Intelligence (SAI) to that list.

Like others in the space, SAI’s solution uses an on-board touchscreen as well as camera with computer vision software and artificial intelligence to identify products that shoppers place inside their cart, so the system can automatically charge the shopper when they exit the store. That’s nothing new; the aforementioned Veeve and Amazon do that as well as Caper.

But there are a few ways that SAI is different from the smart cart competition. First, SAI’s system fits on existing shopping carts, so stores don’t need purchase new ones. Som Sinha, Founder and CEO of SAI, told me by phone this week that stores can just swap out existing cart handles with an SAI one.

Additionally, SAI carts are outfitted with patented photovoltaics that continuously charge the cart using either sunlight or indoor lighting. This means that carts can be used round the clock and don’t need to be taken off the floor to charge.

In other ways, however, SAI carts seem to be behind the competition. SAI’s carts don’t include weight sensors, so if you want to add produce, you have to weigh it separately and print out a special sticker for the cart to recognize.

Additionally, the SAI system has only one camera with a fisheye lens, so it is possible that you could trick the system by tucking a pack of gum behind a big cereal box as you placed it in the cart. Sinha said the second-gen version of the cart will feature a second camera.

SAI, which has raised £100,000 (~$125,000 USD) and is mostly bootstrapped, won’t divulge pricing specifics for its cart, but Sinha said that the company has 450 backorders from two retailers in the UK and India. Those backorders, however are moving anytime soon as the pandemic has retailers holding off on completing those orders for the time being.

While SAI carts may not be rolling around store aisles, retailers have found another use for the technology: checking out the checkout aisles to help prevent theft. Sinha said that because the camera’s computer vision is so accurate, retailers have installed them in checkout aisles in multiple stores to ensure that everything going into a shopper’s bag is accounted for.

That seems a little Big Brother-y, but Sinha said that these catching these small infractions can translate into big dollars across all of the transactions a grocery chain does in a day.

SAI and Veeve are similar in that both are looking at employee use cases for their technology. SAI monitors checkout aisles, while Veeve plans on being used by grocery employees to fulfill online customer orders.

While the pandemic may have slowed the implementation of SAI’s carts in-stores, there is long-term opportunity for smart carts and cashierless checkout tech. Going forward, customers and retailers will be hyper aware of all the touch points inside a store, and giving customers a contactless payment option will become table stakes.

There is some debate as to which approach to cashierless checkout is better. There is the smart cart approach, or the one taken by the likes of Trigo, Grabango and Zippin, which outfits the stores themselves with cameras and AI to monitor purchases.

Sinha says that the smart cart approach is better because instead of wasting resources watching over an entire store, retailers can focus on where the actual purchasing decisions are taking place.

It’s still very early in the cashierless space and honestly, there are enough grocery stores globally that the phrase of the future will be opportunity knocking.

Amazon’s New Smart Cart Raises Lots of Questions (Like, Can Its Cashierless Checkout Scale?)

Amazon has taken the cashierless checkout tech that powers the company’s Go stores and shrunk it down to a smart shopping cart to for its large-format grocery store in Woodland Hills, CA. But this Dash Cart, however, raises more questions about the scalability of Amazon’s cashierless checkout technology.

The Verge first reported on Amazon’s Dash Cart, which features a ring of cameras, weight sensors and a touchscreen. The cart keeps track of everything put in there and automatically charges the customer upon leaving. There is even some Alexa integration (duh) to help with grocery lists.

The Dash Cart will debut at Amazon’s first full-sized grocery store location in Woodland Hills. But that store has gone “dark” to focus on fulfilling the record amounts of online grocery shopping happening during the pandemic and is not currently open to the public.

This raises the first question: Why debut this Dash Cart now, during the middle of a pandemic where, as noted, grocery e-commerce is experiencing record sales? Perhaps we’ll see the Dash Cart put to use in other Amazon venues like Whole Foods. Adding a fleet of Dash Carts to existing Whole Foods stores could be cheaper/easier than retrofitting them all with the cameras and sensors needed for store-wide cashierless checkout.

Debuting the Dash Cart now, when everyone’s attention is focused elsewhere, could also help hide some of the new tech’s flaws. As The Verge notes, the Dash Cart can only account for roughly two bags worth of goods, which isn’t a lot, especially at a full-sized grocery store.

UPDATE: Amazon says that they did a lot of customer research and that the cart was intentionally built to accommodate the high percentage of grocery shoppers that shop for two bags of groceries multiple times per week. This behavior seems like it might have been impacted by COVID, but presumably could return once the pandemic recedes.

The bigger question is, why does the Dash Cart exist at all? Does this mean that Amazon’s cashierless checkout tech, which works seamlessly at convenience store size, doesn’t scale up to a full-sized store very well? We’ve seen Amazon implement the technology in its larger Go Grocery store (10,400 sq. ft.), but perhaps that pushes the limits of what its system is currently capable of.

UPDATE: Amazon says that it’s technology can scale to any size store and square footage was not a consideration. The Woodland Hills store was never built around cashierless checkout.

A final question comes to mind: Why didn’t Amazon just purchase one of the existing smart cart companies like Caper or Veeve. Veeve in particular is founded by ex-Amazonians, is located near Amazon HQ, and hasn’t raised a lot of money so it could probably be picked up cheap. Plus, not for nothing, Amazon isn’t always great at hardware (see: Fire phone and its smart oven), getting some outside help might, you know, help.

Having asked all those questions, it would be silly to think Amazon doesn’t have a plan or doesn’t know what it’s doing. This is bound to fit into some larger plan, even if it’s just a stopgap as it works out the issues with scaling its cashierless checkout.

Aramark Uses AWM Tech for Automated Convenience Store in CA Apartment Community

In addition to a fitness center, a dog park, and a rooftop pool (complete with a 16-foot LED screen), the Nineteen01 apartment complex in Santa Ana, CA now has its own automated convenience store.

The QuickEats Close Convenience from Aramark opened yesterday and features cashierless checkout technology from AWM Smart Shelf. The store is open to the general public and to shop. Customers just need to download the QuickEats Close Convenience mobile app, which they scan upon entry. A mix of cameras, computer vision and AI track what is taken and the shopper is charged automatically when they exit the store.

Greenwood & McKenzie, the real estate investment firm that owns Nineteen01, claims in the press announcement that this is the first such automated convenience store in Southern California. Which might technically be true in that QuickEats is a convenience store. However, Swiftly has powered cashierless checkout at Zion Market in Southern California since last year.

While Quick Eats may not truly be the first cashierless store in SoCal, it is the first one we’ve heard of being built as an amenity in an apartment complex. It’s basically offering a corner store that doesn’t require human staffing and is more convenient for residents (especially for residents cocooning in place during the pandemic). It’s easy to imagine other large apartment complexes implementing similar stores as a benefit to attracting and retaining residents.

It’s also worth noting that AWM is powering the automation for Quick Eats. There are a lot of cashierless checkout startups out there (Zippin, Grabango, etc.), so it’s worth watching to see if AWM carves out its own niche with this type of residential retail.

I expect we’ll see a lot more cashierless applications pop up in the coming months as the pandemic continues and people demand more contactless options.

Veeve’s Smart Shopping Cart Is for Both Consumers and Grocery Employees

One question that comes up when you talk about cashierless checkout is, What do you do with all the cashiers that are no longer needed? Veeve, with its smart shopping cart, thinks it may have an answer.

Based in a suburb outside of Seattle, WA, Veeve makes a smart shopping cart tricked out with cameras and sensors that keeps track of of what you place in it and charges you automatically upon exiting the store. The Veeve cart also has a touchscreen that can guide you to items in-store, present recipes and alert you to deals.

Those features aren’t entirely new. Caper also creates a similar type of cashierless checkout shopping cart. What Veeve does a little differently is that in addition to being available for consumer use cases, its shopping carts can also be a tool for store employees (like former cashiers).

I spoke with Veeve Co-Founder and CEO Shariq Siddiqui this week by phone and he explained that Veeve carts can be a way for stores to create their own Instacart-style shoppers. For example, I could place an order using a grocery store’s app. That grocery list is sent to the Veeve cart where an employee can use it to pick out and assemble the order either for curbside pickup or delivery. In addition to retaining employees, the store doesn’t turn a customer (and all of their data) over to a third-party like Instacart.

Siddiqui also outlined a scenario where everyday shoppers could earn a little extra money by picking up groceries for other people. So if I’m going to my local market, I could get someone else’s shopping list on my cart and deliver those groceries on my way back home.

Siddiqui said that Veeve, which raised $2.5 million in seed funding last November, is still finalizing its business model. But because it works with independent grocery stores, it leases its carts out on a monthly, per cart basis that is “cheaper than a cashier.”

Veeve also has a more advertising-forward business model where it takes a cut of any sales generated by recommendations or upsells delivered via the cart’s on-board touchscreen. This could be done either in partnership with the store or with a big CPG brand with lots of products across store aisles.

I asked Siddiqui why a store should go with a smart cart solution rather than a broader in-store installation of cashierless checkout tech. “The ROI doesn’t make sense when retrofitting store,” he said. “The capital expenditure has a 20 year ROI. You’re just not going to do it. Amazon can do it. Walmart can do it. But the average metropolitan market, that is not a realistic proposition for them.”

The question now is whether Veeve’s dual-use smart cart will be enough of a proposition for stores.

AiFi to Launch 330 Autonomous Stores by the End of 2021

AiFi, a cashierless checkout startup, announced today that it will deploy 330 new and retrofitted autonomous stores globally by the end of 2021.

AiFi is perhaps best known for its NanoStore, a fully automated pre-fab pop-up retail experience packed inside a small building akin to a shipping container. AiFi’s Orchestrated Autonomous Store Infrastructure and Services (OASIS) tech platform can also be used to retrofit existing retail spaces with autonomous capabilities, allowing shoppers to simply walk in, grab what they want and leave. The system charges them automatically.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, AiFi’s OASIS technology will be powering 330 new autonomous stores that range anywhere between 800 sq. ft. convenience stores to 10,000 sq. ft. grocery stores. The new stores will be primarily located across the U.S. and Europe, with expansion to other parts of the world planned for the future

The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across the U.S., which could be accelerating the adoption of autonomous or contactless checkout. Fears over the coronavirus have already caused grocery stores to close down salad and hot bars. Automating checkout would remove the necessity of standing in line with other people, limit cashier exposure to the virus, and obviate the need to interact with a payment terminal that lots of other people have touched throughout the day.

To be sure, eliminating the traditional checkout stand would be a huge undertaking, and large grocery chains aren’t exactly nimble when it comes to implementing new technology. Plus cashierless checkout brings up ethical issues around serving populations that are underbanked. Perhaps, however, AiFi will be taking a page out of Zippin’s playbook and only automating part (like one aisle) of a partner’s store rather than retrofitting the entire building.

We won’t have to wait long to see. AiFi says that it is already powering 10 stores in locations around the world including California, Texas, Amsterdam, Paris and Shanghai. AiFi also has partnerships with Albert Heijn, Carrefour, and others it has yet to announce. If AiFi sticks to its schedule, it will be launching an average of 18 stores per month for the next year and a half.