A year after we reported that the Amazon Fresh grocery store was never going to open on Shady Grove Road, the company has largely abandoned plans to implement its “Just Walk Out” technology nationwide. Despite all the hoopla about high-tech cameras that tracked every item in every shopping cart (see our sneak-peek here), tech publication The Information has revealed that transactions were also being monitored via camera by some 1,000 human workers in India. The details aren’t clear — and Amazon isn’t being very transparent (surprise!) — but it appears that Just Walk Out technology actually requires oversight from people secretly watching behind the scenes. Amazon says its existing Fresh stores will pivot to the less-complex “Dash Cart” system, which enables self-checkout as you shop. (For more on self-checkout vs. human cashiers, click here.)
Ed
It’s important to link to the source for the news about the camera technology going away since they took time to report it. Also the wording in this is slightly incorrect. The cameras were high technology and it’s not that it was a man behind a curtain. The India staff as mentioned in the article were used to double check things. Yes it was not all cameras but it’s not as if it was all fake
Store Reporter
Both good points, thank you. We have updated our article adding some additional context about the technology and a link to “The Information,” whose original reporting led to this week’s acknowledgements from Amazon.