Walmart has opened its new retail store called ‘Intelligent Retail Lab’, a concept store in Levittown, New York powered by artificial intelligence.
According to Walmart, ‘IRL’ is a 50,000 square feet of real retail space equipped with AI which they described as a unique real-world shopping environment containing over 30,000 items.
Mike Hanrahan, CEO of IR said: “We’ve got 50,000 square feet of real retail space. The scope of what we can do operationally is so exciting,” he said. “Technology enables us to understand so much more – in real time – about our business. When you combine all the information we’re gathering in IRL with Walmart’s 50-plus years of expertise in running stores, you can create really powerful experiences that improve the lives of both our customers and associates.”
IRL is set up to gather information inside the store through sensors, cameras and processors which will help in product inventory and availability through using real-time information to check product quality.
“Customers can be confident about products being there, about the freshness of produce and meat. Those are the types of things that AI can really help with,” Hanrahan said.
The team is planning to work on ways to detect the product on the shelf and differentiate one with another and be able to compare the quantities on the shelf to the upcoming sales demand to notify associates what or when to re-stock.
(Photo source: news.walmart.com)
