Amazon Perfecting Checkout-Free Shopping at Seattle Lab

While the Seattle lab looks like a store that uses Just Walk Out technology, it’s a mock store environment that serves as a testing ground for the upgrades that Amazon makes to the system.

At Amazon’s Just Walk Out test lab in Seattle, engineers and researchers are creating the future of shopping. The lab resembles a mock store environment that serves as a testing ground for the upgrades that Amazon makes to its Just Walk Out system.

At Just Walk Out-operated stores, customers enter the store by tapping their credit card or mobile wallet, grab what they need, and leave without standing in a checkout line to pay. The purchase is automatically charged to their payment method.

Just Walk Out uses cameras, weight sensors and a combination of advanced AI technologies to determine the variety and quantity of items that a customer selects, and ultimately leaves the store with.

To figure out the “who” part of the “who took what” equation, Just Walk Out associates a shopper with their payment method at the entry gate. The technology tracks only how a customer’s hand interacts with the products and fixtures, and identifies the products and quantities they leave the store with.

The test lab allows researchers to quickly simulate a variety of complex scenarios that might occur in a real store and adjust the system as needed: for example, what to do when multiple people grab products off the same shelf simultaneously, or when a shopper changes their mind and puts an item back.

Researchers use weights to validate the accuracy of weight sensor installations on these shelves.

Just Walk Out engineers and researchers test various scenarios in the lab first by mapping a store’s layout, usually with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, which uses laser light to create detailed 3D maps of a space. This helps researchers optimize the number of cameras needed, thereby driving down hardware costs, and their placement to ensure comprehensive coverage of the shopping area.

Researchers also use weights to validate the accuracy of weight sensor installations on shelves.

One of the recent accomplishments of the Just Walk Out test lab was the new AI model at the facility. According to Amazon, this multi-modal AI is a significant advancement in the evolution of checkout-free shopping. It uses the same transformer-based machine-learning models underlying many generative AI applications, and applies them to physical stores. It analyzes all sensor data simultaneously, and supports even complex shopping scenarios with variables such as camera obstructions, lighting conditions, and the behavior of other shoppers, while allowing the team to simplify the system.

For third-party retailers, the new AI model makes Just Walk Out faster, easier to deploy and more efficient. For shoppers, the new model means faster receipts and frictionless shopping at more third-party checkout-free stores.

In April, Amazon confirmed that it's focused on using its Just Walk Out technology in small-format retail, while its Dash Carts will be applied to grocery and large-format stores.

Seattle-based Amazon is No. 2 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named the company one of its Retailers of the Century.