Wegmans is testing AI-powered Caper Carts at four New York locations, allowing shoppers to track spending in real time and skip checkout lines with automatic item detection technology.

Learn more about what comes next. Instacart today announced that it acquired Caper AI, a startup developing technologies to automate brick-and-mortar checkout experiences, for approximately $350 million in cash and stock. With the purchase, Instacart says that it aims to help retailers "unify in-store and online shopping [flows] for customers." Caper's New York-based workforce will join Instacart, adding hardware engineering talent to Instacart's existing product development team. Over time, Instacart expects to integrate Caper's technology into the Instacart app and the ecommerce websites and apps of its retail partners, allowing customers to build online shopping lists and browse recipes ahead of time and check off their lists as they go. "Over the years, Instacart has continued to expand its retailer enablement services, helping brick-and-mortar grocers across North America move their businesses online, grow, and meet the evolving needs of their customers.

In 1937, two decades after founding his first Piggly Wiggly, supermarket entrepreneur Clarence Saunders opened Keedoozle, a "fully-automated grocery store." Groceries were offered at a steep discount and sample items were displayed in glass cabinets. "To purchase, the customer will insert a key in a hole in the showcase beside the sample article, press a button," TIME Magazine reported at the time. "In the stockroom the proper article will drop on a conveyor belt leading to the cashier's desk. Simultaneously the purchase price is recorded on an adding machine. After all purchases are made, the customer sticks his key into the adding machine, gets his bill. Using another key, the cashier releases the purchases all wrapped for the customer."