Lowes Hardware, have launched a customer assistant robot at the Orchard Supply Hardware store in San Jose. The trial aims to learn what sort of benefit a robot can provide in store.
The robot two large screens which people can interact with to search for items or more information about products, or ask where to find things and can speak both English and Spanish. Additionally the robot will help store employees with inventory management and communicating with employees in other locations.
The International Federation of Robotics predicts that ‘public relations robots’ is a strong and growing sector that will see more than 400 robots deployed in the next three years. These robots are increasingly used in supermarkets, at exhibitions, in museums, and other venues as guides or information providers. This is not the first robot in retail; there have been trials of in store robots going back over the last 10 years in Japan.
