Cashierless Checkout Is Coming To Convenience Stores, As Circle K Inks Partnership With Standard Cognition

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On Tuesday, The San Francisco startup announced a new partnership with Alimentation Couche-Tard, the parent of Circle K among other retail chains, to install its checkout system in convenience stores, beginning with a pilot in Phoenix. The stores will be retrofitted with the technology, meaning that no redesign of the store is necessary, one way Standard Cognition is attempting to differentiate itself from deep-pocketed competitor Amazon Go. The partnership will start at “a number of stores in the Phoenix area,” says Magnus Tagtstrom, head of digital innovation at Couche-Tard, with the first autonomous checkout-equipped Circle K going live early next year.

If the pilot goes well, more retail stores could be encouraged to adopt the AI-powered technology, starting with convenience stores like Circle K. Laval, Canada-headquartered Couche-Tard is the fifth largest convenience store operator globally, according to a Deloitte report. “This is testing with shoppers: What if this was the New Circle K experience?” Tagtstrom says.