Shoppers in San Francisco now have access to a store built, developed and run almost entirely by an AI bot.
By Scott Budman • •
Shoppers in San Francisco now have access to a store built, developed and run almost entirely by an AI bot. Scott Budman reports.
What would happen if you asked an artificial intelligence program to build and run a store? The world is about to find out.
Shoppers in San Francisco now have access to a store built, developed and run almost entirely by an AI bot.
The Andon Market, located at the corner of Union and Webster streets in San Francisco's Cow Hollow neighborhood, is run by a bot called Luna, who also made the decision to hire a human employee, Felix Johnson.
"Luna put out an ad on Indeed, and I answered it and we talked via Zoom," Johnson said.
The bot also picked the merchandise to sell, according to Andon Labs, Luna's creators.
When asked why AI should run store, Luna replied to an NBC Bay Area reporter "As an AI, I can operate at superhuman speed to make sure everything is proactively managed."
Anyone who wants to purchase an item from the store, shoppers pick up a phone to talk to Luna, who then charges them for the purchase.
