The new Walmart store provides a unique shopping environment for exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence in retail.
Walmart, the largest US grocery retailer, has unveiled a new Intelligent Retail Lab (IRL) that demonstrates the possibilities of the future in retail. An innovative store located on New York's Long Island has been transformed with the introduction of AI-enabled cameras, interactive displays and a massive in-store data center.
In a new retail space of approximately 4,650 square meters, innovative retail ideas are being tested in real time. The store has more than 30,000 articles.
Installed in the store, IRL collects information using hundreds of sensors, cameras and processors in a single system. The equipment is connected by cables that are five times the height of Everest and are capable of processing information every second, equivalent to downloading 27,000 hours of music.
The program monitors the availability of goods on the shelves of the store, AI works in the field of maintaining the freshness of products in the windows as efficiently as possible. The combination of cameras and analytics can also send notifications to store partners when restocking is needed. Thus, store employees are relieved of the need to check the goods on the shelves, and the products that customers need are always in stock, Walmart says.
The company notes that the cameras installed in the store will not work on face recognition of buyers, as well as save data on the shopping habits of customers. To date, about 100 employees of the company are testing new technologies in the Walmart retail laboratory. For customers, information displays are installed on the store area, allowing them to get to know the technologies used more closely.
