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Simbe Expands Computer Vision Tech

Tools allow for low-stock alerts, identification of misplaced items, integrated inventory monitoring and more
Lynn Petrak, Progressive Grocer
Simbe
Simbe's AI-enhanced capabilities are designed to help retailers improve shopping experiences and their own efficiencies

Simbe may be known for its automated shelf digitization tools, including the Tally robot, but the people on the company’s team are advancing in-store solutions with a slew of innovative technologies. This week, the company announced major advances to its AI-powered computer vision technology called Simbe Vision.

“This is celebrating all of the incredible work that our computer vision, engineering and research development teams are doing to create leading edge solutions,” Simbe’s co-founder and CEO Brad Bogolea told Progressive Grocer in a recent interview.

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The latest advances developed by the Simbe team are designed to help retailers optimize their store operations with AI-driven actions. Simbe Vision features several capabilities that were developed in partnership with many of the company’s retail clients, according to the company.

For example, retailers can use the technology to identify low stocks on the shelf, via volumetric detections and advanced depth sensing. “Historically, we were primarily alerted when a product isn’t on shelf. We now have the ability to give retailers a rapid signal of products that are highly likely to go out of stock and are low-inventory,” Bogolea explained.

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In addition, the comprehensive shelf intelligence detects product spreads, plugs, misplaced items, and missing price tags using advanced AI technology that ultimately improves planogram accuracy and reduces inventory distortion. “You might have a scenario when you have products that are misplaced – someone may have put hot sauces in the tea and coffee area, for example. You also want to know that the flavor of the SKU you are looking for is really there,” he pointed out. 

Grocers can improve inventory monitoring with computer vision that combines data from autonomous robots and fixed cameras. “We are fusing data from the physical store with the data that the retailer has on availability. We are looking for scenarios when you say you have zero inventory on shelf but we see a product on shelf, or the opposite, when you say you have something and we don’t see anything,” he remarked.

Diving deeper into the solutions, the technology allows product recognition across shelves that can discern even nearly identical products for correct placement. Automated shelf tag verification is also available. 

As grocers pursue full-store visibility, Simbe Vision claims to deliver 98.7% SKU-level identification accuracy and over 99.3% shelf condition recall. To date, the solution provider has analyzed more than 60 billion retail shelf images and expects to process twice as many images this year compared to 2024.

“This has allowed us to have an unmatched and unprecedented look at what’s happening in retail stores and provide more value than just out-of-stocks and price and promotions,” Bogolea said. “Much of what we are talking about extends core capabilities and is evolving into more advanced use cases.”

In other news, Simbe reported  that it is teaming up with Harmons Grocery to roll out the autonomous Tally inventory robot at 17 stores in Utah. 

“In this business, it’s important to know when an item is out of stock,” Harmons CEO and president Scott Lewis told Utah Business in a recent article about the deployment. “Our stores carry around 60,000 SKUs and it’s been someone’s job to walk the aisles looking at each of them until they find anything that’s out of stock so we know to get that hole filled. Tally is able to traverse a store multiple times a day to give us the insight we need much faster and more accurately than the traditional way."

Simbe's experts will share their insights on automating aisles with robotics at grocery stores and warehouses at Progressive Grocer’s upcoming GroceryTech event in Dallas, June 10-12.

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