How A.I. Is Making Supermarkets Less Exhausting

Wallet-free shopping, souped-up grocery carts and robot helpers are making supermarket excursions smarter, easier—and much, much faster

Rachel Jacoby Zoldan

Feb. 28, 2019 3:53 p.m. ET

IT’S BEEN YEARS since technology began helping urbanites avoid the teeming aisles and whimsical “organization” of grocery stores. Despite the advent of FreshDirect and Instacart, however, I still make dreaded milk-and-juice runs now and then. The good news: A.I. is turning in-store experiences into equally seamless transactions—no lines or registers, no “chip malfunction,” no wait.

Take AmazonGo, the A.I.-powered convenience mart that opened 10 locations in cities including Seattle and Chicago last year, with plans to evangelize...