Can the robots restock the shelves?
AI robots are roaming L.A. grocery store aisles. Shoppers and workers are worried
The robot takeover looks a lot different from what we see in Hollywood thrillers.
Even as artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots dance, box and beat human running-speed records, the physical bots showing up in our daily lives in Los Angeles are less Terminator and more R2-D2.
On a Wednesday afternoon at Ralphs on Pico Boulevard, a skinny, six-foot-tall tower of sensors rolled through the aisles. It made low beeping noises, its lights flickering purple and green. A small screen on the top of the tower had two blinking eyes and a small line of text. “Hi, I’m Tally!”
“Robot! Robot!” a young boy yelled. Some adults looked confused; others laughed.
Ricardo Valadez, a 62-year-old real estate agent from Mid-City and Ralphs regular, said he felt like the robot was stalking him around the store but was reassured by an employee that it just checks the shelves to see what is missing or out of place.
It’s basically inventory assessment. Heck, the robots could have done this without AI onboard.
With a recent rollout in some L.A. grocery stores, the inventory bot, built by Burlingame-based company Simbe Robotics, joins the other free-range forms of physical AI that are already a part of everyday life in L.A. such as food-delivery bots and Waymos.
From inventory management to marketing and checkout, retailers are increasingly adopting automation. The retail automation market could jump to $77 billion by 2034 from $28 billion in 2025, according to estimates from market research company Fortune Business Insights.
Simbe says more than 3,000 of its bots have been contracted to monitor shelves worldwide. Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs, is using hundreds of them after pilot projects that started in Indianapolis and Cincinnati, and recently spread to California.
It’s a lot easier and less time consuming than having a human wander around. Anyone ever done it? It’s tedious. I remember doing it at a liquor store I worked at in my hometown in NJ during school breaks. And while they are big in NJ, nothing like a grocery store. It can also be more constant and less expensive using these robots. They can also create better insights in consumer purchase habits, and notice changing habits quicker. But
Unions are concerned the bots — which Simbe claims can save employees up to 50 hours of work per week — could put human employees out of work.
In July, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union branch representing employees in Washington, northeast Oregon and northern Idaho released a statement outlining concerns about deploying Tally across Kroger-owned Fred Meyer locations.
“Union members regularly do this work,” the statement said. “We believe outsourcing our union jobs to robots will erode our unity in the worksite, reduce available hours for those who need them to pay the rent, and threaten the stability of our benefits.”
And that’s what this whole article is about, the Big Unions being concerned about losing dues paying members, especially since the Government keeps forcing private businesses to pay more and more, and a lot comes back to the unions as dues. Personally, unlike using robots at fast food places, I see this as a helper which frees up existing workers from tedious inventories and restocking. At least until the point where the robots can restock the shelves themselves. And, heck, do the shopping for pickup/delivery orders.
Ralphs employee Fournier said she and others worry about job automation and whether the bots could be used to monitor employees. With self-checkout and digital shelf tags already reducing the need for employees, some workers wonder what is next.
“Even an inventory job, like now, that’s being shopped out to a computer,” Fournier said. “What are they trying to do here?”
It won’t call in sick. It won’t lollygag. It won’t create HR problems. It won’t quit. What if it monitors employees and says “this guy/gal is great, give them a raise or bonus”? They should worry less about the limited number of robots in the store and more about the security cameras being powered by AI and monitoring them.
There needs to be more discussion ahead of time and sign-off from employees before more robots are deployed, said a local union.
“Our members should not be finding out about major changes to their workplace only after new technology shows up in their stores,” said Kathy Finn, president of UFCW Local 770. “Checking shelves, identifying out-of-stock products, and maintaining store conditions are all areas where our members perform important work every day.”
I’m confident that the worker bees are not owners of the stores. They aren’t managers. So, no, they do not need to sign-off. The entire article is really about protecting the unions, as one would expect from the LA Times.
Read: Grocery Workers Super Concerned Over AI Robots In California Stores »
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