Walmart has been in the news a few times over the past week or so regarding their investment in robotics and innovation. I think it’s really easy to get caught up in the “sexy” innovation coming from firms like Tesla and miss out on some real, impactful innovation coming from a retailer like Walmart. So, I’ll provide a quick walkthrough in this post of the couple robots that caught my eye.
I’ll lead with the innovation that is currently operational today: robots roaming the aisles in 50 stores around the US. Walmart has new, robotic employees that roam the aisles of the store three times per day to identify the stock of items, items placed in the wrong spot, incorrect prices, and missing labels. As the robot identifies issues, it sends alerts to the store personnel to address.