Morrisons has unveiled its newest staff members - in the form of aisle-roaming robots. The retail giant is trialling'Tally' robots at three stores in Wetherby, Redcar and Stockton, to monitor how products are being displayed on shelves. Using advanced AI and computer vision technology, Tally is designed to spot out-of-stock items, pricing errors, and misplaced products. Morrisons' technology manager, Katherine Allanach, called this a'crucial' role. 'It is a crucial but time-consuming task and so Tally aims to allow more time for colleagues to focus on customer service,' she told The Grocer.

Kate speaks with Brad Bogolea, CEO and Co-founder of Simbe Robotics. Simbe Robotics developed a mobile robot named Tally, which is bringing advanced shelf insights to improve the retail shopping experience. Tally provides a state-of-the-art sensing system on a robust, scalable platform that collects analytics in real-time. Brad Bogolea is the CEO and Co-Founder of Simbe Robotics, where he is responsible for the company's vision and execution of its leading retail intelligence solution. In November 2015, Brad brought to market the Tally robot, the world's first autonomous shelf auditing and analytics solution to help retailers ensure merchandise is always stocked, in the right place, and correctly priced.

Walk into the Decathlon sporting goods store on Market Street in San Francisco and you will find yourself face to face with Tally. She is tall and slender, and has a winning smile--she smiles with her eyes. She is gentle and considerate: if you get in her way, she will quietly glide around you without complaining. She is extremely intelligent and highly efficient: as she moves up and down the aisles, she takes a real-time inventory of the products on the shelves and racks, checking which products are running low or out of stock, and whether they are labeled with the correct price. She can read RFID tags, but she can also use AI-powered image recognition to distinguish different products at a glance.

The Tally robot, from Simbe Robotics, helps out in stores so people can be freed from the monotonous task of checking shelves for inventory. Wouldn't it be nice if robots could clean our office, greet clients or put away the groceries at home? But even though we want and often embrace advances that make our lives simpler, the vision of robot as dutiful helper hasn't come to fruition. Robotics has made a big difference in manufacturing, but has failed to make it into our homes and businesses in a meaningful way. It turns out the challenges are plentiful.

The lights are going out at malls across the United States with more than 20 major retail bankruptcies in 2017. As of today, store closures have skyrocketed to 7,000 doors throughout the nation, affecting such iconic brands as Toys R Us, Walgreens, Gap, Sam's Club, The Children's Place, Hallmark, Stride Ride, Aeropostale, Wet Seal, The Limited and Walmart. At the same time, investment in retail technology has never been higher, especially robots.A month after Walmart laid off close to 10,000 workers with the shuttering of Sam's Club, it announced a new partnership with Pittsburgh-based robot manufacturer, Bossa Nova. The mechatronics innovator will begin rolling out inventory auditing scanning bots to 50 Walmart locations. The machines will automate the tasks previously held by inventory associates by autonomously navigating around the store to check the shelf display, inventory position, and pricing of the big box's 200,000 items.

This fall, customers cruising the aisles of Lowe's home improvement stores in the San Francisco Bay Area may see a new type of employee taking inventory and assisting shoppers. You won't find a nametag on this worker, but you won't confuse it with other employees, either. The new kid in town is the LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot that scans and audits store inventory on the floor. It uses voice recognition to identify products for customers and lead them to the right shelf -- in multiple languages. The retailer is deploying LoweBots at 11 of its Bay Area stores over a seven-month period using NAVii robots made by Fellow Robots, following a successful two-year pilot program of a first-generation robot called OSHbot that was tested at one of Lowe's Orchard Supply Hardware stores.

Gliding silently through the aisles, it looks more like a moving parking metre than the latest in supermarket technology. But this robot - called Tally - promises to end customers' frustration of finding empty shelves when searching for a particular product. The robot is described as the world's first'autonomous shelf auditing system' and is designed to stalk the aisles looking for stock that is running low. Tally can scan shelves up to 8ft (2.4 metres) high (pictured) to look for gaps, misplaced products and items facing the wrong way, as well as checking prices and checking for out of date products. The machine is also designed to look for price discrepancies or identify stock that is nearing its sell-by-date and so needs to be discounted. Designed by California based start-up Simbe Robotics, the robot is able to capture data on up to 20,000 products in an hour.

This fall, customers cruising the aisles of Lowe's home improvement stores in the San Francisco Bay Area may see a new type of employee taking inventory and assisting shoppers. You won't find a nametag on this worker, but you won't confuse it with other employees, either. The new kid in town is the LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot that scans and audits store inventory on the floor. It uses voice recognition to identify products for customers and lead them to the right shelf -- in multiple languages. The retailer is deploying LoweBots at 11 of its Bay Area stores over a seven-month period using NAVii robots made by Fellow Robots, following a successful two-year pilot program of a first-generation robot called OSHbot that was tested at one of Lowe's Orchard Supply Hardware stores.

This fall, customers cruising the aisles of Lowe's home improvement stores in the San Francisco Bay Area may see a new type of employee taking inventory and assisting shoppers. You won't find a nametag on this worker, but you won't confuse it with other employees, either. The new kid in town is the LoweBot, an autonomous retail service robot that scans and audits store inventory on the floor. It uses voice recognition to identify products for customers and lead them to the right shelf -- in multiple languages. The retailer is deploying LoweBots at 11 of its Bay Area stores over a seven-month period using NAVii robots made by Fellow Robots, following a successful two-year pilot program of a first-generation robot called OSHbot that was tested at one of Lowe's Orchard Supply Hardware stores.