Frictionless retail technology is helping organizations from convenience stores to stadiums deliver faster, more enjoyable shopping experiences to consumers. With Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, consumers can walk in, grab what they want, and leave without stopping to check out.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence make this remarkable consumer experience possible.
Computer vision and state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms fuel Amazon’s game-changing technology, which was inspired by what consumers dislike about the traditional in-store shopping experience.
“You need to invent on behalf of the consumer,” says Gerard Medioni, Amazon Vice President and Distinguished Scientist. “Just Walk Out technology addresses consumers’ frustration with waiting in checkout lines, so they can quickly get their items and move on with the rest of their day. That’s the power of what machine learning can do to create magical experiences for consumers.”
Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology leverages camera feeds and weight sensors on shelves to detect who took what from the store. The result is a seamless process that recognizes a consumer throughout the entire shopping journey, eliminating the need for standing in checkout lines to pay for items.
But keeping track of each consumer and the items they add to their cart barely scratches the surface of the complexity involved in a truly effortless consumer experience. Think avocados: People don't just pick one and go. They pick one up, squeeze it, put it back, and try another until they find the one they want. Amazon’s technology is smart enough to understand those behavior patterns and produce an accurate receipt.
Just Walk Out technology has evolved from operating in 1,800-square-foot convenience stores to 40,000-square-foot grocery stores, airport retailers, and major stadiums.
“They all have unique environments, but share a common theme: They have high demand and their consumers are pressed for time,” explains Medioni. “Stadiums, for example, get a crowd of consumers during specific interval periods, such as intermission or halftime. Stadium-goers want to quickly grab food and drinks and get back to their seats to enjoy the game or show without wasting time in line. That is the experience the technology helps to deliver.”
Building technology to elevate the physical retail environment led Amazon to ask what other innovations could be made to bring efficiency and ease to the consumer experience across touchpoints—beyond just shopping.
Simplifying Consumer Experiences Beyond Retail
While Amazon's Just Walk Out technology was eliminating lines in updated stores and venues, consumers were still fumbling around with phoness, credit cards, and wallets in stores with traditional checkout systems. Using biometric palm identification, Amazon One gives consumers a single, contactless way to be identified, enter, and pay—eliminating those lingering friction points. And the application goes far beyond shopping.
Instead of reaching for a paper ticket or searching your phones for an app, now your palm is all that’s needed to get into a game, movie, or concert. Other systems that use a keycard or barcode for access, like the gym or membership rewards programs, can also be replaced with Amazon One. Best of all, Amazon One creates a unique signature from your palm that can’t be lost, taken, or shared, making the entire process more secure for both consumers and businesses.
Biometric technology isn’t new, but Amazon wanted to raise the bar. More than facial recognition or fingerprint identification, Amazon’s palm scan is a truly contactless, intuitive, and highly accurate solution. The combination of palm lines and ridges with a subsurface scan of the veins beneath the skin make its identification technology more accurate than most facial recognition applications. Because a palm scan requires an action by the user (they have to hover their palm over the device), there’s no risk of incidental identification that could happen from merely walking into a room where facial recognition is used.
“Visual observations of palm images do not provide clues about identity, like face or voice signal may,” explains Medioni. “Amazon One captures both the palm print and the vasculature patterns under the skin, which makes it harder for bad actors to steal or mimic. In contrast, face and voice modalities are easily and widely accessible and can be stolen or replicated.”
Palm scan identification is also intuitive and contactless. People are already used to holding their phones over a scanner; Amazon One simply removes the phones from the equation. After enrollment, there’s no contact with any surfaces. Consumers just hover their palm over an Amazon One device—they don’t have to insert a card or touch a screen.
Deciding on palm identification was just the beginning. Amazon created synthetic data to simulate subtle variations in palm and vein structures to help recognize one palm from another. The coup de grâce is liveness detection: The technology checks that the sensor response matches the spectral properties of human skin and that of human blood presence in the vasculature.
On top of using sophisticated optics and well-trained algorithms that can discern the right levels of detail at the right frequencies, Amazon One also needed to make sure its data was impenetrable. “Security was a top consideration. Because it’s biometric, we needed to make sure the device was tamper-proof, and that nothing was stored locally that could be accessed if the device was lost or stolen,” says Medioni.
Amazon One devices are completely closed. Images are transmitted with end-to-end encryption to the cloud and stored in a secure zone, with no raw biometrics included. And unlike thumbprints or facial recognition scans that are used more ubiquitously (as with your smartphones and government agencies), palm data is unique to each user’s Amazon One ID, so its data is less likely to be mined by other sources.
All it takes for consumers to enjoy the benefits of Amazon One is a quick enrollment at an Amazon One kiosesk. Once enrolled, users can make payments or identify themselves using only their palm at any locations with Amazon One. Consumers can ditch their wallets—both physical and digital alike—and move freely through their day across a variety of experiences.
Both Just Walk Out technology and Amazon One are complex innovations that aim to remove the complexity from everyday interactions. Friction points like waiting in line and fumbling to find a loyalty number or credit card are gone. This technology allows all kinds of organizations to reap its benefits, without having to build, manage, and maintain it themselves—leaving consumers with nothing more to worry about than hovering their palms, grabbing what they need, and getting back to their lives.
This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Amazon.
