The seamless shopping experience is apparently gaining traction for the Just Walk Out technology developed by Amazon Web Services Inc.

The Just Walk Out platform leverages a combination of AI, computer vision, sensors and radio frequency identification to let customers walk into a store, pick up an item and exit. AWS has made numerous enhancements to the technology since its launch in 2018, and this has led to an increase in store participation over the past year, according to Rajiv Chopra (pictured), vice president of AWS Healthcare AI, life sciences and Just Walk Out at AWS.

“Over this last year, we’ve seen our customers really scale up,” Chopra said. “It’s moving from pilots to customers signing up for 10 plus stores that they would want to deploy. Overall, we are seeing expansion, not simply in the United States. We’ve expanded to additional countries in different verticals. The number of stores we’ve launched this year far exceeded last year, and we already have commitments for next year that is more than double.”

Chopra spoke with John Furrier at AWS re:Invent, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how AWS is implementing Just Walk Out for a broad spectrum of shopping applications.

Range of shopping experience use cases

Just Walk Out’s growth has covered a number of use cases in different industries. The technology can be found in stadiums, such as Lumen Field in Seattle and a large venue in London. AWS is also attracting interest among hospitals, universities and airports. The company lists 25 airports as customers on its website, including JFK in New York and Las Vegas International.

“You can just browse through and see what you want to get before a flight,” Chopra said. “You want to pick up something, you forgot to pick up [a] toothbrush. You can just walk into a Hudson store.”

Just Walk Out is powered by a multi-modal foundation model that was designed by AWS for physical stores using an architecture similar to that of generative AI. The model helps retailers generate data from multiple inputs, enabling better store management, according to Chopra.

“Just Walk Out is an example of AI at scale, at work, at a high level of accuracy because all of the computer vision models are a form of AI,” he said. “When we think about the experiences for our merchants in order to manage the store or the associate in the store that’s stocking the shelves or counting what needs to be replenished…we’re simplifying and automating those with simpler interfaces that are going to be agentic in nature.”

The concept behind Just Walk Out addresses one of the most fundamental aspects of human behavior: customers don’t like standing in lines. As Just Walk Out technology continues to be installed in high pedestrian traffic venues such as airports and stadiums, AWS plans to enhance the platform to make the shopping experience as simple as possible.

“We are focused on the core value proposition where you really want to avoid long lines,” Chopra said. “We’re focused on our RFID fast lane, which allows you to not have to take bags. You can just pick up your stuff, tap a card and Just Walk Out with the products in your hand.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent:

Photo: SiliconANGLE