Giant Food Stores will place robotic assistants at 172 locations, company says | Washington Post

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"The robots move around the store unassisted, scanning the floors for spills and trip hazards, which are reported to human workers, the company said. Once a spill is located, the machine — which makes beeping noises as it moves — reports it by verbally communicating to human employees after paging them.

Marty says, “caution, hazard detected,” to alert customers, but the machine also sends an announcement through a store’s public address system, alerting associates.

In addition to scanning shelves for items that are out of stock, Marty also does price checks, looking for discrepancies between the shelf and the store’s scanning system, Patrick Maturo, manager of store optimization at Ahold USA, told PennLive."

Giant Food Stores will place robotic assistants at 172 locations, company says | Washington Post