After cashiers, supermarket managers may be next to lose jobs as AI predicts what to stock

US e-commerce giant Amazon may have just made cashiers redundant by opening its artificial intelligence powered checkout-free grocery store in its hometown Seattle in January, but on the other side of the Pacific an experiment conducted by Chinese search engine Baidu could make management in supermarkets and convenience stores worry about their own job prospects. 

The ability to accurately predict consumption patterns of perishable food products on rainy work days in say, the central business district of China’s Wuhan city, is something only experienced store managers can do, but that may soon be an obsolete skill thanks to an AI-powered algorithm developed by Baidu, the operator of China’s largest online search engine. 

With historical data from 70 metrics including store food purchases, sales, the weather and festivals, Beijing-based Baidu said it has developed a model that can predict store sales for the next day as a reference for the store manager to decide on the quantity of food products, such as rice boxes and sandwiches, needed to meet the customer demands without creating excess waste. 

Amazon is using AI and camera technology to provide customers with a “grab and go” shopping experience at its futuristic grocery store Amazon Go. Shoppers just choose their items and leave, with the cost automatically charged to their Amazon account after they leave the store. In China, the country’s two top e-commerce players Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com offer similar retail experiences.