Amazon insists Just Walk Out isn’t secretly run by workers watching you shop

Amazon is pushing back on claims that its cashierless Just Walk Out technology is run by humans in India — not AI. In a blog post on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant calls these reports “untrue” and says that a machine learning model powers its system.

Last week, reports started going around that claimed Amazon employs around 1,000 workers in India to watch people shop and review purchases at stores using its Just Walk Out tech. The report claimed that Amazon’s workers had to review around 700 of every 1,000 transactions in 2022, something that isn’t uncommon in the world of AI.

While Amazon insists these reports are “erroneous,” it doesn’t deny that humans aren’t involved with the process at all. Instead, Amazon says its workers are tasked with annotating AI-generated and real shopping data to improve the Just Walk Out system — not run the whole thing. “This is no different than any other AI system that places a high value on accuracy, where human reviewers are common,” Dilip Kumar, the vice president of AWS Applications, writes in the post.

Amazon’s post also appears to confirm reports that the company is pulling back on its Just Walk Out technology. It found that customers “prefer” to use Amazon’s Dash Cart, which automatically tallies up items as you place them inside the cart, in larger grocery stores. In line with those findings, Amazon says it has started expanding its Dash Cart to third-party grocers and all Amazon Fresh stores.

Meanwhile, Amazon says Just Walk Out is better suited for stores with a “curated selection” of products and where customers may only need to purchase a few items. Amazon plans to launch “more small-format third-party Just Walk Out stores in 2024 than any year prior.” It still isn’t giving up on bringing the cashierless tech to larger stores, either. Amazon says it’s working to improve the “latency and accuracy for faster and more reliable receipts,” as well as working on new algorithms and sensors.