Reinforcement learning (RL) is used to automate decision-making in a variety of domains, including games, autoscaling, finance, robotics, recommendations, and supply chain. Launched at AWS re:Invent 2018, Amazon SageMaker RL helps you quickly build, train, and deploy policies learned by RL. Ray is an open-source distributed execution framework that makes it easy to scale your Python applications. Amazon SageMaker RL uses the RLlib library that builds on the Ray framework to train RL policies. This post walks you through the tools available in Ray and Amazon SageMaker RL that help you address challenges such as scale, security, iterative development, and operational cost when you use RL in production.

Floor space optimization is a critical revenue management problem commonly encountered by retailers. It maximizes store revenue by optimally allocating floor space to product categories which are assigned to their most appropriate planograms. We formulate the problem as a connected multi-choice knapsack problem with an additional global constraint and propose a tabu search based meta-heuristic that exploits the multiple special neighborhood structures. We also incorporate a mechanism to determine how to combine the multiple neighborhood moves. A candidate list strategy based on learning from prior search history is also employed to improve the search quality. The results of computational testing with a set of test problems show that our tabu search heuristic can solve all problems within a reasonable amount of time. Analyses of individual contributions of relevant components of the algorithm were conducted with computational experiments.

Walmart is laying off the robots it had deployed in about 500 stores to keep tabs on what's on and not on the shelves. The retailer said it has ended its relationship with startup Bossa Nova Robotics, which builds roving robots equipped with cameras for identifying out-of-stock and misplaced products. Walmart said in a statement it has "worked with Bossa Nova for five years and together we learned a lot about how technology can assist associates, make jobs easier and provide a better customer experience." It said it is still testing other new technologies for tracking inventory and moving goods. "This was one idea we tried in roughly 500 stores just as we are trying other ideas in additional stores," Walmart said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the ending partnership Monday, citing unnamed people familiar with the situation who said the retailer found human workers could get similar results.

Walmart (WMT) has retired robots working in about 500 stores as it found "simpler solutions" to inventory management. The retail giant said it ended its five-year partnership with major supplier Bossa Nova Robotics. Walmart had pushed for automation in its stores for years. The company said in January that Bossa Nova robots would be used in 1,000 of its 4,700 U.S. stores. Walmart had repeatedly said such robots would be'sidekicks' to store workers.

Wayfair Inc. has 37,173 kinds of coffee mugs for sale. Factor in different colors, sizes or materials, and the range of options rises above 70,000. It's Jim Miller's job to help shoppers find the mug they want--along with a set of espresso cups, a waffle iron or other products they didn't know they wanted. In the past five years, the company's success rate has jumped 50%, measured by the number of clicks it takes for a customer to add an item to their carts and how often they buy those items, among other variables, according to Mr. Miller, the Boston-based online retailer's chief technology officer. He credits the gains to advances in smart software.

Many organizations have started adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions, yet the C-level executives are neither data scientists nor AI experts. AI is not a new concept. However, it is only in the last decade the technology has managed to make advancements worldwide. In the present day, we're able to speak to our mobile devices and it responds, when we're trying to book an Uber we receive multiple options with the price updates, or even when we're streaming service on an online portal, we receive recommendations – we've all been experiencing AI-enabled solutions everywhere. It's just that we tend to ignore them.

Walmart is reportedly ending its contract with the robotics company that provided shelf-scanning machines to stores. According to The Wall Street Journal, the retail giant is ending its contract with Bossa Nova Robotics and plans to replace the machines with human workers. The company provided robots to over 500 stores when the contract ended, according to the report. Walmart did not immediately respond to requests for comment by USA TODAY. Walmart first announced the use of shelf-scanning robots in 2017, aiming to replenish inventory faster and save employees time when products run out.

Throughout my half-decade of working at Well Good, I've become an accidental alternative milk connoisseur. Avocado milk, barley milk, pili nut milk, and chia milk have all made their way into my fridge at some point. So when I got a tip about yet another vegan option hitting store shelves, I had to admit, I was skeptical. Does the world really need another alt-milk?Jeff Bezos is betting on the answer to that question being yes. The Amazon CEO is backing a new product called NotMilk, created by NotCo, known as the "Impossible Foods" of Latin America.

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Amazon Lab126 is an inventive research and development company that designs and engineers high-profile consumer electronics. Lab126 began in 2004 as a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Since then, we have produced groundbreaking devices like Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo. What will you help us create? Lab126 is part of the Amazon.com,