Automate avant-garde — 3 autonomous stores from Paris

3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 275

News 1. Pizza but made by a robot

Pazzi is an autonomous pizzeria in Paris with another location in Serris in the East of Paris. They call themselves the world’s first autonomous restaurant. Customers order on a self order terminal which allows them to customise the exact toppings of the pizza. The robot arms then prepare the dough, add the sauce and toppings, put the pizza in the oven and cut it in front of your eyes. If you also ordered a drink you’ll get that from a vending machine. Opinion: Pazzi is an excitable example of how a human task can be automated. There is a large team behind it, so we expect to see more of these restaurants in the near future.

A not even that simple task is automated by a robot arm, fun to watch Pazzi make Pizza!

News 2.Click & Collect but cool

Delipop launched a pick up location for groceries in cooperation with Carrefour in October. To use its service, customers have to order groceries in Carrefour Drive and set the Delipop store as the pick up location. Customers can pick up their orders the same day if ordered in the morning or next day if ordered later during the day. Customers get an access code to enter the colourful Delipop pick-up store. Opinion: Delipop aggregates orders and thus operates at significant lower cost compared to ultra-fast deliveries. At the same time the fresh and modern designed pick-up stores can keep up with the coolness-factor of Gorillas.

A hip and cool pick-up store for groceries, we hope to see more of these around Europe’s neighbourhoods.

News 3. “Almost Just Walk Out” but more practical

Carrefour launched their new, first of its kind, autonomous store “Carrefour Flash 10/10” in Paris at the end of November. Utilising cameras and scales the store tracks the products taken and customers just have to pay — no scanning needed. Opinion: Compared to “Just Walk Out” technology, customers still have to pay manually. However they don’t need to download an app and register before before shopping. This makes this store more practical to use for a larger audience.

Convenient, no download of an app required.

Author is the research team (10 trend scouters) at specialist Space and Lemon Innovations (Hamburg, Berlin) — scouting innovations in main tech geographies, AI development, virtual worlds and e-commerce. Excerpts of research are gathered here in original weekly news since 2016, always with an opinion — no re-write of TechCrunch.

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