NexTech AR tool watches your face as you shop, pitches when you smile

Your smartphone is an ideal shopping tool -- always with you and armed with a rear camera that captures things you might want to buy. Now imagine its front camera looking back at you, judging your reaction to what you're seeing and taking your smile as a cue to urge you to make a purchase. That's the innovation behind NexTech's latest "sentiment-based technology solution" for its Try-It-On retail augmented reality platform, thanks to AI provided by Microsoft Azure. If it sounds a little creepy, that's probably because AI is learning to do what human salespeople have done for generations: gauge a customer's sentiment and capitalize on it to make a sale. The difference is that NexTech is making facial recognition and analysis possible within retailers' augmented reality apps and websites, rather than limiting it to physical stores.