AI in the aisles: South Florida supermarket shoppers get personal assistant in their carts

PINECREST, Fla. — A South Florida grocery store is showing off how artificial intelligence can make the shopping experience easier for customers.

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It’s called ‘Cooper’: an AI-powered tablet attached to the shopping cart that is designed to act as your personal shopping assistant.

Julian Janna created the system mainly in an effort to solve the never-ending frustrations with shopping.

“Someone might be shopping for their family, someone might be shopping for a barbecue, so we just want to make a personalized experience for each shopper,” said Janna. “I see this as my mom giving my dad a list of things to get and my dad’s like, ‘I have no idea where any of this is.’ That’s exactly it.”

Milam’s Market is on the forefront of this tech movement and turns out it’s not that hard to use. You can just grab and go or even upload your list and it pops up on the tablet.

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The app gives you a real-time map of where you are in the store and, if you’re unsure of what item to buy, Cooper can help with that as well by answering concept questions.

Milam’s says this is all an effort to help customers. The app is in its beta phase now but the response has been positive.

“Because it tells us the customers are interested, they’re willing to give something a chance,” said Milam’s Market Chief Administrative Officer Chad Milam. “What we see the data is that we see customers returning to use it time and time again.”

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