Sam's Club announced it will start using artificial intelligence at its store exits to verify all items were purchased, reported USA Today.
Sam’s Club EVP and Chief Merchant Megan Crozier made the announcement during a keynote speech at CES 2024 trade show in Las Vegas. “Eliminating even the few seconds it takes to scan a receipt at the exit door is well worth it,” Crozier said during the speech.
The exit technology aims to solve a "key member concern" of waiting in line for receipt verification, Sam's Club parent company Walmart said in a news release.
Sam’s Club will now have customers go through a gate-like portal rather than having an employee stand at the door and check individual receipts—an innovation that Crozier described as reimagining the future of retail in her presentation. The portal is equipped with what Walmart called “computer vision and digital technology” to verify purchases.
The new exit system will use "a combination of computer vision and digital technology" to capture images of a customer's cart at the exit to verify if the items in it were purchased.
Crozier said the company plans to include the feature in its nearly 600 stores across the country by the end of 2024.
"We aspire to be the most convenient place to shop," Crozier said.
Waiting can be a frustrating experience for shoppers, who often have to wait in two lines after shopping: the checkout and then the exit, and the practice has also led to accusations of racial bias, with some customers saying they were subject to more thorough checks than other shoppers, said the New York Times.
More AI: Yesterday, NACS Daily covered SymphonyAI and Google’s latest AI-based innovations.