The US retail giant Walmart ends its cooperation with the robot startup Bossa Nova. The retail chain is no longer using the startup’s robots, reports the Wall Street Journal , citing corporate circles. Since 2017 Walmart has tested the robots that are supposed to help with the inventory and from 2018 used in more and more branches. Most recently, the robots were used in 500 stores, up to 1000 were actually planned. As recently as January, the company announced that Walmart would use further 650 robots during the course of the year.

The approximately 1, meter high robots drive through the supermarket and scan the rows of shelves. They record the inventory, missing or incorrectly sorted goods as well as outdated price tags. Although the company hoped that this would not only increase sales through better stockpiling but also reduce labor costs, the robots were popular with human colleagues because they relieved them of very monotonous tasks.

Expectations not met Apparently the robots were not able to meet expectations. In addition, in view of the increase in online business, especially in times of the pandemic, Walmart had to use more staff to process online orders in the branches, reports the Wall Street Journal . These employees could also take over the inventory that the robots had previously performed. It also said that CEO John Furner was concerned that customers would react negatively to the robots.

Walmart will continue to experiment with new technology in retail, said a spokeswoman. “We learned a lot about how new technology can help employees, make their jobs easier and improve the customer experience.” For example, the company continues to use cleaning robots in its branches and is also considering other options to automate inventory.

Layoffs at Bossa Nova After Walmart did not renew the contract, half of the employees at Bossa Nova had to leave. Apparently, the startup wants to focus more on the further development of AI in the future, according to company circles. “Our retail AI is the best in the business and works with robots and cameras alike,” CEO Sarjoun Skaff told TechCrunch. The CEO didn’t want to say anything about Walmart, but confirmed austerity measures. The startup is a spin-off from the Institute of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and has brought some toy robots onto the market in addition to the shelf R2D2s.

(vbr)