Retail AI, Inc. Announces Joint Project With Toshiba Tec

Through Toshiba Tec’s ELERA™ platform, Retail AI will expand its current network of 89 stores, 9,115 carts and 1.8 million monthly users.
TOKYO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Retail AI, Inc., a Japanese retail-tech company based in Tokyo, and Toshiba Tec have launched a joint project aiming to “create a new era of shopping experience and revolutionizing retail operations.”

Retail AI has been pioneering the Japanese retail market’s digital transformation since 2018 through its ”Smart Store Technology®︎”, which combines experience in physical brick & mortar stores with the latest AI technology. The Smart Shopping Cart is Retail AI’s premier solution, which allows shoppers to complete their shopping experience with a smooth self-checkout.

Through the integration of the Smart Shopping Cart with Toshiba’s ELERA, a unified commerce platform with modular microservices, both companies aim to deliver increased convenience for shoppers and more efficient operations for retailers.

About Retail AI’s Smart Shopping Cart

Retail AI’s Smart Shopping Cart is an in-store shopping cart that offers customers a new-generation shopping experience by enabling a smooth checkout without the need to stand in line. The Smart Shopping Cart currently has 9,115 units installed and was used by 1.8 million customers of all age groups during the month of August 2022. Retail AI’s Smart Shopping Cart stands out with its unique unscanned item prevention technology and an in-house developed AI recommendation and promotion engine, which improves store profitability and enhances the customers’ shopping experience.

About ELERA by Toshiba

The ELERA™ unified cloud commerce platform and suite of solutions accelerate digital transformation, empowering retailers to remove boundaries between physical and digital stores. Toshiba’s ELERA enables retailers to rapidly reimagine, create, and scale compelling and cohesive experiences for their customers—whenever, wherever, and however they shop.

Via a microservices-based, API-first approach, ELERA enables smarter, faster, and more flexible deployments by using advanced technology such as AI and computer vision* to transform the physical store and merge it with the digital world. As a result, retailers can finally experiment relentlessly to unify and scale store functions, and interconnect them with their digital commerce capabilities to deliver faster growth and unparalleled experiences that accelerate the future of retail.
*AI and computer vision services are not scheduled to launch in Japan at this moment (September 2022).