'AI+Retail' is Attracting Fans Like Crazy YI Tunnel Causes Quite a Stir at an AI Retail Expo

BEIJING, July 3, 2018 (Newswire.com) - On the 2018 China Xiamen International Artificial Intelligence Retail and Unmanned Store Industry Fair, which took place several days ago at the Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center, a smart vending machine attracted a lot of visitors. “Items in this machine can be displayed in any way or even upside down, so this is not like other vending machines that rely on weight sensors or static vision recognition, which have very high requirements on display,” said a young man with the family name of Zhou. While saying that, he scanned a code to open the so-called AI vending machine, took a bottle of Coca, and also took a bottle of orange juice for his colleague before closing the door of the machine “without making payment”... It turned out that, at the moment when he closed the door, the payment was made automatically by the AI vending machine, so he didn’t have to do it manually. We can see from the familiar operations of people that quite a few of them are professional visitors. 

There were over 100 AI retail brands represented at this event with the theme of “AI+Retail,” including numerous renowned brands of device manufacturers, software companies, and brand operators. YI Tunnel was invited to the exhibition with its AI smart vending machine and checkout robot. The convenient, cool and very popular smart vending machine mentioned above is YI Tunnel’s AI smart vending machine, which has become a big name recently, and is now the world’s only pure-vision AI smart vending machine in commercial use. 

There were many AI-based unmanned retail products at this exhibition, but AI retail solutions that could really be put into commercial use like YI Tunnel’s AI smart vending machine and checkout robot were very rare. After experiencing how convenient and cool the machine is in terms of taking any item they want and having their payment made automatically, people at the exhibition used words like “fresh” and “convenient” to express their feeling. People representing many brands also took a strong interest in the product. Some nodded approvingly while experiencing the machine. Especially after learning many advantages of YI Tunnel’s AI smart vending machine such as having no restriction on where the items are displayed, being able to accommodate a bigger number of items, as well as the 24x7 automatic maintenance and smart operation, some of them began to talk with the staff in YI Tunnel’s exhibition area right away on cooperation. 

In addition, at the exhibition, YI Tunnel also reproduced the unmanned checkout scenario of a restaurant, attracting a lot of bystanders. According to YI Tunnel’s staff at the exhibition, YI Tunnel’s checkout robot currently is already able to recognize over 30,000 items of merchandise, including standard items and non-standard items. By just taking a “look” at an item, the machine will be able to recognize it. For non-standard items, it can also weigh them. And the machine’s facial recognition and membership systems all can be connected with retailer’s backend systems. 

“This checkout robot can be used under various scenarios such as retail locations, major canteens, restaurants, and bakeries, and it’s really a very good experiment for optimizing the checkout process,” said a professional visitor to a colleague by his side. “We also hope to collaborate with YI Tunnel as soon as possible.”

At present, YI Tunnel mainly offers three retail solutions: the AI smart vending machine, the unattended (or unmanned store), and the checkout robot. One of the reasons that these products are well-received by brands, retailers, and consumers is their ability to recognize a massive number of items and their diverse application scenarios.  

YI Tunnel’s machines also have the ability to recognize people’s face: by taking a look at a customer, they would be able to determine the customer’s gender, expression, and movement. And the data about all the shopping behaviors of customers including their motion trajectory and how they take an item or replace an item as well as the data about how long they stay within a YI Tunnel unmanned store or in front of a YI Tunnel AI smart vending machine will be recorded. This will be combined with customer’s payment data for big data analysis, to be used to guide tallying, displaying and restocking operations at the frontend, and to guide the supply chain for flexible production at the backend. As a result, the commercialization of AI has been taken to a new level, to better serve retailers and brands. 

YI Tunnel founder and CEO Yili Wu said: “In the AI era, with AI technologies, retailers can  realize smart merchandising, smart store operation, target marketing, smart pricing, and smart site selection. What they couldn’t do in the past can be done through AI today absolutely.”

It’s worth noting that YI Tunnel was also put on the “Top 100” list of smart products during the 2018 Ebrun Commerce AI Summer Forum in recognition of its contribution to, and outstanding performance in, making the real economy digital and intelligent.

It is said that YI Tunnel is accelerating its pace to roll out commercial AI solutions around the globe, and its products can be found in many retail locations of China, UK, US, Japan, Middle East, etc. Today, YI Tunnel is joining hands with top retailers and brand partners to lead the development of retail in the AI era.

Source: YI Tunnel