Walmart expands use of in-store inventory robots

Walmart is expanding the use of shelf-scanning inventory management robots to more than 50 U.S. stores after testing in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and California, according to a Walmart blog post.

The robots, which have a vertical scanner tall enough to scan all the shelves in a given store aisle, move down each aisle scanning for out-of-stock items, incorrect prices and wrong or missing labels on products.

The aim is to have robots perform manual, repeatable tasks that otherwise would be performed by human store associates. Having the robots do it instead is expected to free up store associates to spend more time directly helping customers. Read more