Cashierless Stores: Myth, Failure, or a Step Into the Future?

In recent years, retail has entered an era of bold experimentation. Cashierless stores, “smart checkouts,” and “virtual assistants” seemed to promise that the future had already arrived. Yet many high-profile launches quickly collapsed. Some projects with billion-dollar budgets even tried to “disguise” real people as artificial intelligence. The outcome was predictable: customer disappointment, growing skepticism, and eroded trust.

But does this mean we should abandon the idea of a fully autonomous store?

Our answer: no. This is a challenge, not a dead end.

At Aivilon, we believe that mistakes — our own and those of others — are catalysts for genuine progress. Real breakthroughs are not born in quiet labs, but in the noise of experiments, countless tests, bold hypotheses, and yes, even spectacular failures.

We are not afraid to admit that the path is difficult. To build a truly working product, one great idea is never enough. Dozens of scenarios must be tested, customer behavior carefully studied, and technology validated in real-world conditions. Every step is a lesson.

Lessons from Early Attempts

Looking back at the first waves of cashierless stores, one thing becomes clear: the problem wasn’t the idea itself, but the execution.

• Some projects overestimated the maturity of the technology — customers encountered manual processes disguised as automation.

• Others focused on “wow factor” demonstrations, forgetting about reliability: system errors, incorrect charges, and inconsistent recognition quickly destroyed user trust.

• Still others underestimated the human factor — customers want convenience, transparency, and fairness, not the feeling of being part of a half-finished experiment.

  
  

The Aivilon Approach

Since mid-July, our team has been fully dedicated to the challenge of building an autonomous store. So far, we have:

• tested more than 150 hypotheses around technology, service scenarios, and customer interaction models;

• discarded dozens of solutions that looked promising on paper but failed in practice;

• identified and refined a direction that shows consistent results and gives us confidence in a commercially viable product.

We are not imitating automation — we are building real automation. Our focus is not on staged demos, but on solutions that hold up in real stores with real customers.

What’s Next?

In the near future, we’ll share our first measurable results and success stories. For us, the goal is not just to build “another technology,” but to prove that a cashierless store can be convenient, transparent, and effective for customers and operators alike.

The future of retail will not be built on illusions. It will be built on working solutions. And that’s exactly what we’re creating at Aivilon.