Amazon Opens Automated Grocery Store Without Cashiers

Amazon opened their first automated “Amazon Go” grocery store in Seattle this week.

Business Insider UK reports that Amazon has launched the first of their semi-automated “Amazon Go” grocery stores in Seattle this week. The stores have no checkout lanes or cashiers, instead, shoppers pick what they want off a shelf and add them to a digital shopping cart on their phone, allowing them to walk out of the store with their purchases without ever having to stop at a checkout lane.

Amazon began testing their stores with employees in December of 2017 before launching the store to the public. The new 1,800 square foot store will be located in Amazon’s Seattle office building. The company plans to use machine learning technology to identify the items added to shoppers carts so that shoppers can then leave the store and have their grocery items charged automatically to their Amazon account.

Internal plans from Amazon show that the company could build up to 2,000 Amazon Go grocery stores across the U.S. over the next decade. Amazon currently runs their own grocery delivery service called Amazon Fresh, CEO Jeff Bezos previously emphasized a slow rollout method for introducing the service saying, “we’ll continue our methodical approach — measuring and refining Amazon Fresh — with the goal of bringing this incredible service to more cities over time.”

CNET posted a video tour of the new Amazon GO Seattle store which can be watched below.