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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

self checkout

Standard AI Bridges Gap Between Autonomous & Self-Checkout With Acquisition of Skip

San Francisco-based company Standard AI has announced the acquisition of self-checkout solution provider Skip. The deal will combine Standard AI’s autonomous retail platform with Skip’s self-checkout technology, which they say will allow retailers to resolve labor challenges with a path toward autonomous checkout. Standard AI will integrate Skip’s cloud-based point-of-sale system with its back office technology post-acquisition, which Standard AI says will streamline operations and provide greater control over pricing and promotions.

Standard AI, which has been deployed with retailers such as Circle K, uses machine vision and AI to enable autonomous storefronts. The company says its technology is deployed and customized in stores without the retailer having to change their existing formats and footprints.

The deal allows Standard AI to offer more options, allowing retailers to reach a wider swath of customers. An autonomous just-walk-out experience can be almost jarring if you’ve never done it before. With a self-checkout option, retailers can give those customers who are not quite ready to just pick up and walk out with their items an option with which they are more comfortable.

Standard AI says it plans to bring to market the world’s first platform that connects self-checkout with autonomous retail later this year, allowing retailers to have the option to use the platform with or without the self-checkout kiosks.

The deal signals what could be a period of consolidation of the retail checkout automation market. Nearly seven years after the launch of Amazon Go, the space has been filled with several startups that offer platforms leveraging machine vision, sensors, and other technologies that enable retailers to move away from more traditional checkout formats. With the tightening of venture and other forms of capital, my guess is we’ll see more combinations like this over the next 12-18 months.

You can watch the video explaining how Standard AI technology is integrated into stores below:

Standard AI's Platform

Circle K Planning To Deploy Seven Thousand AI-Powered Self-Checkout Machines

Mashgin, a maker of computer-vision-based self-checkout machines, announced today it has signed a deal with Circle K parent company Couche-Tard to deploy seven thousand self-checkout machines at the convenience store chain over the next three years.

The move follows the initial deployment of Mashgin systems at nearly 500 Circle K stores across the United States and Sweden since 2020. The move by the second-largest convenience store chain in North America with almost seven thousand stores will represent one of the largest ever deployments of self-checkout systems to date.

For Mashgin, the deal represents its biggest customer win yet and is yet another sign of why the company was able to recently raise a $62.5M Series B round at an impressive $1.5 billion valuation. The move represents a 700% total increase in deployments over its current installed base.

The Mashgin self-checkout system is installed at the checkout counter and enables customer checkouts without scanning barcodes. As seen in the video interview from CES in January, customers can essentially toss their items onto the small checkout pad, and the system will automatically recognize and tabulate the products.

The Spoon checks out Mashgin's AI-Powered Checkout at CES 2022

The decision by one of the world’s largest convenience store chains to equip most of its store footprint with self-checkout is a sign of just how quickly this technology has been embraced ever since Amazon helped kickstart the category off six years ago with its Amazon Go store concept. For its part, 7-Eleven’s push into self-checkout has centered around its Mobile Checkout system, which allows users to scan items with a smartphone and pay on their smartphones.

Grocery stores like Kroger are also experimenting with self-checkout, trialing concepts like smart shopping carts. Online grocery pioneer Instacart diversified into cashierless checkout last year with the acquisition of Caper, and has recently started to call itself a ‘retail enablement platform’ provider.