Couche-Tard to deploy AI-powered ‘Smart Checkout’ in over 7000 stores

Alimentation Couche- Tard, one of the world’s largest convenience retailers, said it will deploy AI-powered self-checkout systems to over 7,000 of its Circle K and Couche-Tard stores during the next three years.

The retailer has entered an agreement with US tech firm Mashgin to bring more than 10,000 computer vision-based, next-generation self-checkout machines to stores in the US, Canada and Europe.

The global rollout follows successful deployment in nearly 500 Circle K locations in the US and Sweden since 2020, and Couche- Tard said the Mashgin Touchless Checkout Systems will improve customer checkout times as much as 400 per cent, driving customer experience forward while allowing store staff to focus their time on helping customers.

The development represents one of the largest scale expansions of computer vision-powered checkout technology to date.

Referred to as ‘Smart Checkout’ in Circle K and Couche-Tard stores, the Mashgin system is a compact countertop device that fits easily into the existing store layout. Customers place their items on the device, which uses computer vision to recognise items presented from virtually any angle and instantly ring them up in a single transaction.

There is no need to download an app or find and scan barcodes: shoppers simply put items down, pay as they normally would, and are on their way in as little as 10 seconds – eight times faster than traditional self-checkout, the company said.

“We’re committed to investing in and scaling technology that sets a new standard for convenience with our customers and advances our mission to make our customers’ lives a little easier every day,” said Magnus Tägtström, vice president, global innovation at Couche-Tard.

“The Smart Checkout system powered by Mashgin’s game-changing technology shortens lines, improves the customer experience and frees up our teams to focus on helping our customers. We look forward to introducing this new platform to stores across our network.”

Surveys of first-time Mashgin users at deployed Circle K locations show that 80 per cent of those customers prefer Mashgin to traditional forms of checkout and self-checkout. Recent updates to the system to allow cash use, fuel purchase and loyalty programs have driven customer adoption.

Mukul Dhankar, Mashgin co-founder and chief technology officer, said: “Mashgin’s core technology represents a major breakthrough in the world of artificial intelligence. By reinforcing computer vision models with three-dimensional data, we are able to reach 99.9% accuracy when ringing items.

“This innovation also allows the system to easily differentiate between different sizes of items with a similar appearance, and also makes it flexible enough to recognize grab-and-go foods like pizza or roller grill items that may look slightly different each time. Another key component to our technology is its ability to learn new objects in less than a minute and sync that data across stores, making it possible to set up a new store in under an hour.”