The Just Walk Out technology allowed people to shop without a cash register — they simply scanned a QR code at the entrance, and Amazon relied on sensors and cameras to track what people were leaving the store with.
In total, more than half of Amazon Fresh stores relied on Just Walk Out. The company positioned the technology as something close to an AI triumph — although it turned out to be not fully automated. According to The Information, more than a thousand employees from India watched and tagged the video to ensure accurate calculations — in fact, the cashiers were simply moved outside the stores.
Instead, Amazon is planning to launch Dash Carts, a smart shopping cart with a built-in scanner and screen.
Just Walk Out was first introduced in 2016, and while it seemed state-of-the-art, it was not without its problems. Customers often received receipts after leaving the store only a few hours later — sometimes from someone else. The system of scanners and video cameras in each store was also incredibly expensive.
The Information writes that as of 2022, 700 out of 1,000 Just Walk Out sales required reviewers (Amazon’s internal goal is 50 out of 1,000) — but the company denies this data.
«The main role of our machine learning data scientists is to annotate video images, which is necessary for continuous improvement of the underlying machine learning model», — said Gizmodo Amazon representative.
Amazon Fresh, the e-commerce giant’s grocery store first opened in 2007, has about 40 locations in the US alone. Interestingly, the company plans to keep Just Walk Out in some Fresh stores in the UK, Amazon Go stores, and some stadiums.