Robot on aisle 7: Customers react to autonomous inventory machine roaming a Seattle grocery store

What happened

The future apparently arrived a couple years ago, at least as far as Fred Meyer parent Kroger is concerned. The retail giant began piloting robotic technology in 2024 to “gain real-time insights on product inventory.”

An autonomous, camera-laden robot named Tally is scanning shelves — and triggering a mix of Jetsons-esque wonder, anxiety about job losses, and some customer privacy fears. Tally, an inventory robot, scans shelves at a Fred Meyer store in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood.

Equipped with an array of cameras, computer vision and AI, the slender machine pauses briefly near display shelves before beeping like a grocery-focused R2-D2 and zooming down the line to scan digital shelf tags. During a GeekWire visit one morning last week, Tally sparked a mix of curiosity and pointed questions about the impact of retail automation from shoppers and workers alike.