Traditional shopping carts could become a thing of the past in a few years, as stores and supermarkets in different countries rely on artificial intelligence. This would reduce queues at checkouts as well as theft.
Old and dilapidated supermarket carts with hard and sometimes crooked wheels, They are replaced by a much more modern version in different countries around the world. Not only is the model design better thought out, but Users will be able to use a Artificial intelligence of the basket to help them with their purchases.
These are the models designed by the startup Caper AI who decided to specialize in the design of intelligent shopping carts.
Some copies are already circulating in stores in the United States, Japan, Sweden and Germany and, according to information from the business magazine Fortune they will soon arrive in Spain.
In addition to Help us make shopping more efficient and faster supermarket trolleys with AI too They will make it difficult for people looking to steal from stores.
This is how they work.
What do the most modern supermarket trolleys look like?
The shopping experience with a smart supermarket cart is very different from the traditional shopping experience: firstly, Caper Cart models have a built-in screen that the buyer will use when adding products to the cart.
To start using them, They must be unlocked with the cell phone with a QR code. This way, the basket is synchronized with the person’s profile an element which will initially scare away possible thieves or people wishing to abuse it.
In addition, The shopping cart application is connected to the user’s card, because this is how they will pay for the products directly (you no longer necessarily have to pay).
As explained by Xataka when registering your profile, a small security deposit is blocked on the person’s card (similar to traditional carts which require the use of a coin).
The carts, which have a capacity of 155 liters and weigh around 50 kilograms, They have sensors that detect products when they are placed in the basket . Once inside, the screen shows what product it is, its price and other important information.
Some models do this automatically, although there are others that They have a barcode reader that works the same way, but manually.
The idea, as the startup explains, is that People can be more efficient, promote self-collection, streamline purchasing processes and reduce queues generated at specific times of the day.
Regardless, the company mentioned that AI shopping carts may not be suitable for everyone: Some may not have a cell phone available, sufficient battery life, an associated card, or have difficulty using technological devices.
This is why Traditional strollers don’t have to disappear completely. They would just be an additional alternative to speed up the process.
Additionally, in-cart displays could provide a channel to provide personalized offers to customers and allow users to receive product recommendations related to their lifestyle.
The benefits of AI shopping carts
The company instacart acquired Caper Cart for $350 million in 2021. Since then, they have distributed thousands of smart carts to the various supermarkets they operate.
“We have been betting from the start that smart carts would be the winning technology to transform the in-store shopping experience, because it’s a format that people recognize and doesn’t require upgrading an entire store with large capital investments,” said Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart.
In addition, they have implemented a system to take supermarket shopping even further: There are programs to reward customers for their purchasing behaviors.
“We turn shopping from a chore into an adventure” the company said Fortune.
This would be an example of how artificial intelligence can benefit and simplify the tasks of humanity, as it would help shoppers avoid queues, while stores would see a decrease in the theft of their products.
According to a report from the Food Industry Association, Supermarkets plan to increase their spending on AI technologies by 400% by 2025.
Errors AI can cause with supermarket shopping carts
Although this technology promises many solutions with the new carts, The path is not without obstacles (at least for now).
For example, Instacart uses ChatGPT AI to make the carts themselves recommend recipes to customers while they shop in order to purchase the ingredients necessary for their preparation.
However, on several occasions, The AI showed customers questionable images on screens, such as a chicken with vegetables that had fish-like scales.
This would be an AI error.
Similar challenges have led to the failure of some visionary projects.
An example of this is Amazon Just Walk Out Stores which had customers enter the store, choose their products, which were detected by the cameras, and when they left, they were automatically charged to the credit card on file (without going through a checkout).
This case was controversial, because some Technical reports revealed that it was not an AI that detected the products, but rather more than 1,000 Indian workers who were glued to watching the cameras.
Amazon assured that this was not the case, but that they had employees in India who “randomly” checked the records to verify that everything was in order.
Source: Latercera
I am David Jack and I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years. As an experienced journalist, I specialize in covering sports news with a focus on golf. My articles have been published by some of the most respected publications in the world including The New York Times and Sports Illustrated.
