Former soldiers use AI to wage war on convenience store lines

Trigo Vision, an AI startup founded by former members of the Israeli army's special forces and intelligence community, just came out of stealth mode with a target in its sights: Amazon's Go store. When Amazon opened its cashier-less store in Seattle earlier this year, it was hailed as the future of brick-and-mortar shops. And even if the company follows through on plans to open half a dozen more, the locations will be little more than a novelty. There are more than 150,000 convenience stores and 40,000 grocery markets in the US alone. Amazon may have enough money to build sophisticated storefronts full of expensive hardware from the ground up with no regard for profits – the marketing alone is worth it for the juggernaut worth $900 billion – but most other retail chains don't.