Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
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Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#2Once their vision for "grab and go" vanished due to technological infeasibility [1] the entire premise for the stores vanished as well.
I suspect that they wanted to take a hail marry to see if somehow it was possible to get much greater efficiency compared to standard grocers, and it looks like that failed.
[1] it may come back. The technology is rapidly improving but they have bigger fish to fry ATM.
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#3Did the humans pretending to be the AI unionize?
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#4Once their vision for "grab and go" vanished due to technological infeasibility [1] the entire premise for the stores vanished as well. I suspect that they wanted to take a hail marry to see if somehow it was possible to get much greater efficiency compared to standard grocers, and it looks like that failed. [1] it may come back. The technology is rapidly improving but they have bigger fish to fry ATM.
What's interesting I know of a company in the industrial space that is trying to do this still (stuff on a shelf, grab and go, no human interaction).
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#5I thought they already did close them.
I know at some point they got caught basically paying people to watch cameras to figure out what products people we're grabbing. I'm sure were either at the point or very close to the point where AI can successfully do this basically 100% of the time.
So I doubt it's the tech aspect of this, more just the grossness a person feels walking into a store with Amazon's name on it. Compare this to whole foods.
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#6Coincidentally(?) they are open their first big box retail store: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/09/amazon-plans-first-big-b...
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#7Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed.
Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras.
If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost point it would have been great since nobody likes those silly self checkout machines.
What’s amusing about all of this is that before it got leaked that it was basically a bunch of people in India watching cameras Amazon folks spoke about the tech like there was some super secret AI they developed. Since that story broke nobody there seems to want to talk about “just walk out” anymore.
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#8Coincidentally(?) they are open their first big box retail store: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/01/09/amazon-plans-first-big-b...
That will be interesting to watch.
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#9Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…
Even that didn't work well, when I was at an airport recently I had investigated 4-5 items as I had some time to kill. When I was walking out it wanted to bill me for 70 dollars even though I only had a bottle of water and a candy bar.
I have little trust that a corporate behemoth will do right by me and refund the discrepancy at an unspecified later time as it says it will on checkout.
Re: Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
#10Their fate seemed sealed when it was revealed a bit back that the “just walk out” technology was more hype than substance. Just lots of people watching what you’re doing on camera vs an actual AI that worked well at mass deployment scale. A good idea, poorly executed. Reports said the “AI” was largely 1000+ people in India watching the cameras. If Amazon actually managed to build AI that worked well at a decent cost…
Even that didn't work well, when I was at an airport recently I had investigated 4-5 items as I had some time to kill. When I was walking out it wanted to bill me for 70 dollars even though I only had a bottle of water and a candy bar. I have little trust that a corporate behemoth will do right by me and refund the discrepancy at an unspecified later time as it says it will on checkout.
They pay the most for human involvement. Wages, special conditions, and insurance are exponentially higher than their plans of warehouse to end-user via lockers and drones.