Microsoft promotes unmanned cash register system to challenge Amazon Go

Reuters quoted news reports that Microsoft is developing an unmanned cash register system that can automatically detect products in the shopping basket, and has recently demonstrated technology to many retailers such as Walmart, hoping to draw the retail industry against Amazon's unmanned stores Amazon Go.

Insiders revealed that about 10 to 15 members of the Microsoft Enterprise Artificial Intelligence team are investing fully in the development of unmanned cash register systems, and report the results of the R & D to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

It is understood that a few months ago, Nadella suggested that the R & D team develop a "smart cutting-edge device", which aims to manage the amount of data uploaded to the cloud by many cameras and sensors in unmanned stores, thereby saving retailers the burden of cloud service fee.

Microsoft has demonstrated this technology at the Microsoft Retail Experience Center in Washington State a few days ago, and has attracted local retailer AVA Retail and several other companies to collaborate to use the Microsoft cloud platform to support their unmanned cash register system.

Industry insiders believe that the unmanned cash register system launched by Microsoft must be low enough to attract retailers to adopt, because the interest rate of the retail industry has been minimal. If Microsoft's unmanned checkout system matures, it is expected to become a counterweight to Amazon Go.

In recent years, Amazon, which has continued to disrupt the rules of the game in various major industries, took the lead in launching Amazon Go in 2016. At first, it was only available to employees in the headquarters of Amazon in Seattle. However, the first store was quickly opened in Seattle early last year. Showcase to Chicago and San Francisco.

Amazon Go allows consumers to shop without using a wallet and relying on a smart phone. The shopping basket and shelves in the store are equipped with cameras and sensors, which can detect the products put into the shopping basket by consumers. When the consumer has finished picking up the product, as long as he goes directly out of the store with the bag, the Amazon app installed in the phone will automatically check out and complete the purchase through mobile payment.

Gene Munster, head of research at Loup Ventures, a venture capital firm, said: "Unmanned cash register systems are the future trend of convenience stores and grocery stores.

Although Amazon has stated that it does not intend to apply this technology to Whole Foods, which was acquired last year, Amazon is still not behind in the pace of research and development. Dilip Kumar, Amazon ’s vice president, said in an interview earlier this year that Amazon is training computers to recognize product content with the least amount of information.