I don’t think anyone at the time thought self-checkout would actually be a silver bullet. Sure, it would make stores more efficient, give shoppers another checkout option, and reduce pressure on staffed lanes, but it was never going to solve all the operational challenges in the front of the store.
But I’m also unsure that the industry was clear-eyed on the tough tradeoffs and new challenges the now-mature technology poses. I mean loss-prevention, of course. As we’ll see in a second, self-checkout makes it that much tougher.
But an interesting new report from VoCoVo, a British retail-tech firm, suggests artificial intelligence is emerging as one of the retail food industry’s preferred tools for tackling that problem. (VoCoVo talked to 250 American retail food decision-makers and 500 consumers in its research.)
Nearly 59% of grocery retailers surveyed said the introduction of self-checkout had increased shoplifting. Among food retailers in general, the figure was even higher, at 61.9%.
That finding is helping push AI from an experimental technology toward an operational tool.
Already, 41.2% of grocery retailers in the survey said they are integrating AI into anti-theft operations. Among grocery retailers that have not yet taken such action, another 44.1% said they intend to launch AI anti-theft solutions during the coming year.
Taken together, the numbers suggest that self-checkout could well be one of the clearest practical use cases for AI in the grocery store.
Revisiting the Self-Checkout Tradeoff
VoCoVo’s research examined attitudes toward AI, the operational problems retailers hope the technology can address, and where retailer priorities align – or do not align – with shopper expectations.
The report shows remarkably broad acceptance of AI among grocery operators. More than 97% of grocery retailers surveyed said AI will be vital to the future of brick-and-mortar retail. Some 94% are already using AI or planning for its integration, and 41.2% said they are aggressively planning to implement AI within the next 12 months.
But the most immediate opportunity appears to be less “futuristic” than many discussions surrounding AI suggest.
Far from pie-in-the-sky, “World of Tomorrow” high-concept ideas, retailers are using the tech to solve concrete store-level problems: theft, inventory shrink, false alarms, employee safety and the challenge of coordinating frontline workers with security operations.
The self-checkout is, of course, where more or less all of these problems converge to erode margins.
Retailers increasingly need technology that can distinguish suspicious activity from an ordinary shopper mistake without turning every questionable scan into an employee intervention. According to VoCoVo, 35.3% of grocery retailers are prioritizing reductions in customer friction and false alarms; 32.4% are focused on improving coordination between store staff and security teams.
Can you catch more shoplifters this way? I’m sure. But the opportunity here is bigger than that.
An AI system that produces too many false alerts can create yet another operating expense. Employees have to respond, legitimate customers can be hassled, and the “faster” checkout experience becomes slower, more confrontational, and, as I said, expensive.
For what it’s worth, I think the winning systems here, the ones packing the most value, will ultimately be best at deciding when not to intervene.
A Broader Store-Level AI Push
Self-checkout is only one piece of a much larger technology buildout suggested by the VoCoVo data.
Grocery retailers are also prioritizing smart shelves and inventory sensors, cited by 46.7% of respondents, while 30% are looking toward automated incident alerts. VoCoVo said these technologies can provide the foundation for AI-powered alerts, better employee coordination and real-time store decision-making.
Employee safety is another significant concern.
VoCoVo found that a supermajority – 79.4% – of grocery retailers surveyed were concerned about verbal and physical abuse directed at employees. Grocery workers experienced an average of 58.7 hostile incidents per year, according to the report; for your average grocery store employee, that’s roughly once every work week. What’s more, 32.4% of grocery retailers said employees had resigned during the previous 12 months as a direct result of customer abuse.
Technology is being viewed as part of the response. Some 88.2% of grocery retailers surveyed said they believe AI will play an important role in reducing workplace abuse during the coming year.
Here’s What AI Can’t Do
Interestingly, the report also exposes the limits of what technology alone can accomplish.
When asked what would most improve productivity, 40% of grocery retailers pointed to better product and system training; 35% cited having additional employees available during peak periods.
I think that’s going to help define food retail’s ongoing AI adoption.
We know AI “belongs” in the store, and VoCoVo’s research tells us that decision has, for the most part, already been made. We can also see how retailers are deploying it to combat clearly defined operational problems to achieve measurable improvements.
How it improves performance and margin at the self-checkout offers an unusually visible test – one worth watching closely. If AI can reduce theft without producing more friction, false alarms, or demands on already stretched store employees, self-checkout might turn out to be the silver bullet – or at least something closer to it – after all.