You walk up to a robot-run convenience store, place your order on an app, and robotic arms quickly grab your items and deliver them to a secure window, all without any human employees. That's exactly what's happening at VenHub, a fully autonomous, AI-powered smart store that just opened at the LAX/Metro Transit Center in Los Angeles. Even if you haven't seen one in person yet, VenHub's cutting-edge tech is set to shake up how people shop all across the country. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts, and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide -- free when you join.

The most remarkable thing about shopping in a smart store is how unremarkable it feels -- once you get over the whole no-checkout thing, of course. At the same time, there's a whole mess of complex computer vision modeling going on all around you to facilitate the experience. Those models have to be sophisticated enough to handle all manner of image challenges: object recognition, activity recognition, pose estimation. Asking a system to differentiate between two similar bags of chips, grabbed by people in similar coats and gloves, with no margin for error, is a big ask. Getting it right requires data.

With the fear of contracting the coronavirus pervading most aspects of daily life, consumers are embracing contactless systems for transactions and spurring the growth of artificial intelligence-driven smart stores. Ecommerce had been growing steadily before the pandemic hit, and the contagion only accelerated the trend away from brick-and-mortar operations. Total online sales reached $73.2 billion in June, up 76.2% from one year ago, Adobe Analytics reported. Coresight Research said the pandemic has forced retailers to innovate, leveraging technology to create a more efficient supply chain and generate growth. At the same time, it has become necessary to reduce contact between employees and consumers, forcing retailers to embrace curbside pickup, cashier-less stores, contactless payment and vending machines.

When you discover the ways Chinese company Alibaba, the world's largest e-commerce marketplace with $248 billion in transactions (more than eBay and Amazon combined), invests in artificial intelligence and machine learning, you realize quickly that the list of what it doesn't impact is much shorter. Since 1999 when the company was launched in founder Jack Ma's apartment, Alibaba's core business remains to sell goods, but its influence and operations have expanded to make it one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. One of the reasons Alibaba and other Chinese tech companies such as Tencent and Baidu, collectively known as BAT, are making extraordinary gains in artificial intelligence is the support, investment and commitment of the Chinese government to become the dominant AI player in the world. With plans to build a $1 trillion AI industry by 2030, China is on a path to overtake the United States as the world's leader in technology. Along with an enormous population that generates critical data to inform AI algorithms and help make them better as well as a society who is keen on technological change and not as pushy on regulation, China is fertile ground to develop AI applications, and Alibaba is moving full throttle ahead. In fact, Alibaba invested in seven research labs that will focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, network security, natural language processing and more.

Tomorrow's retail stores want to take a page from their online rivals by embracing advanced technology -- everything from helpful robots to interactive mirrors to shelves embedded with sensors. The goal: Use these real-world store features to lure shoppers back from the internet, and maybe even nudge them to spend more in the process. Amazon's new experimental grocery store in Seattle, opening in early 2017, will let shoppers buy goods without needing to stop at a checkout line. Sensors track items as shoppers put them into baskets or return them to the shelf. The shopper's Amazon account gets automatically charged.

Tomorrow's retail stores want to take a page from their online rivals by embracing advanced technology -- everything from helpful robots to interactive mirrors to shelves embedded with sensors. The goal: Use these real-world store features to lure shoppers back from the internet, and maybe even nudge them to spend more in the process. Amazon's new experimental grocery store in Seattle, opening in early 2017, will let shoppers buy goods without needing to stop at a checkout line. Sensors track items as shoppers put them into baskets or return them to the shelf. The shopper's Amazon account gets automatically charged.

Tomorrow's retail stores want to take a page from their online rivals by embracing advanced technology -- everything from helpful robots to interactive mirrors to shelves embedded with sensors. The goal: Use these real-world store features to lure shoppers back from the internet, and maybe even nudge them to spend more in the process. Amazon's new experimental grocery store in Seattle, opening in early 2017, will let shoppers buy goods without needing to stop at a checkout line. This photo provided by SoftBank Robotics America demonstrates a shopping experience with SoftBank Robotics' humanoid robot called Pepper, waving at right. The robot can greet shoppers and has the potential to send messages geared to people¿s age and gender through facial recognition.

This photo provided by Best Buy shows an example of Best Buy's demonstration for Facebook Inc.'s Oculus Rift headsets. From robots to interactive mirrors to shelves embedded with sensors, tomorrow's retail stores will embrace technologies to not only draw shoppers back from e-commerce but also nudge them to spend more.