Amazon.com Inc.’s effort to automate the brick-and-mortar shopping experience hit a new milestone today after it inaugurated its first full-sized cashierless grocery store in Seattle.

The online retail giant’s first cashierless convenience store opened a little over two years ago, also in Seattle. Amazon has since added about two dozen locations nationwide under the Amazon Go brand, but none matches the scale of its newest retail space.

The store, which will be operated under the separate “Amazon Go Grocery” brand, spans about 10,400 square feet and is more than four times larger than the company’s previous biggest Go location. It also features some new technology. To avoid charging customers for fresh produce that they pick up but then put down, Amazon has reportedly tweaked the artificial intelligence system that drives the store to detect when an item is returned to the produce section.

Consumers enter the store by placing their smartphone on a gated turnstile and can simply walk out when they’re done shopping without having to wait in a checkout line. AI-powered cameras on the ceiling see what items a customer puts in their cart, then broadcast the information to another system that charges their credit card when they head out.

Amazon has provided some clues about its future cashierless store plans. Dilip Kumar, the vice president of Amazon Go, told the Wall Street Journal that the systems powering the new Seattle location can theoretically be deployed in retail locations up to 10 times larger. Some of those systems might end up in the more than a dozen retail spaces the company has reportedly rented in the Los Angeles area for a new grocery store chain.

Amazon last year was also said to be interested in selling its cashierless checkout technology to other retailers. Regal Cinemas parent Cineworld Group PLC is reportedly one of the companies that have held talks with Amazon about the subject. 

Photo: Amazon