This is not the first time Amazon has sold groceries through a brick and mortar store as the company previously opened smaller “Amazon Go” stores (not to mention Amazon also owns Whole Foods), but it is the first time that experience has culminated in a new and full Amazon Go Grocery store. What’s more, if the plan works out as Amazon hopes it will, then it is unlikely to be the last Amazon Go Grocery store to surface on US streets.
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Amazon Opens A Local One-Stop Surveillance Store
Obviously, nothing in Amazon’s new grocery store is free. Just like any other store, everything has to be paid for, but in a bid to make the experience as seamless and pain-free as possible, Amazon relies on technology to take care of everything. First off, there’s the actual app that s will need to to do their shopping. As this is an app installed on a smartphone, it is able to track a variety of things, and is also used to gain access to the store, as well as exiting and charging the cost to the ’s card on file. Then there’s the in-store experience where as expected, the store comes with the usual cameras recording what happens. While that’s nothing new, these cameras are fitted with motion and object detection technologies to detect just about everything in the store, including the shoppers. Shelves also come with their own sensors which further help to identify what’s happening at the item level.
All of this results in an increased level of monitoring and data processing. Amazon might label the entire experience with the more affectionate-sounding “Just Walk Out Technology,” but the combination of artificial intelligence, machine and deep learning results in everything being observed and noted. For example, these stores are aware of everything you pick up off the shelf, and are equally aware if you put things back again. Not to mention that each time you take something from somewhere and move on, the all-seeing system places the item in your virtual cart. The technology is therefore, and in real-time, always aware of everything you have touched, kept, and are walking around with. On first impressions, Amazon Go Grocery stores might be the ultimate in convenience, but they are also the ultimate in tracking.
Source: Amazon