Byte-sized AI: The machines have taken over Sainsburys
Welcome to the very first issue of my new technology newsletter Byte-sized AI. Each issue I will give you three things:
- Something techy from the news
- Something that made me laugh
- Something that you can do to improve how you work
📰 The one item of news:
AI is coming to your supermarket
Sainsbury’s are rolling out AI into the self-checkouts which can identify objects like bananas and cauliflower to cope with the lack of barcodes. It has struck me for a while now that AI object recognition would probably be the death of the bar code – why have a code when the software can simply recognise what you’re holding?
Of course, it also means that you won’t be able to put bakery goods (very expensive per gram) through as carrots (very cheap per gram) either, and I’m sure that’s part of the motive.
Supermarkets run on very tight margins so are always on the hunt for new ways to reduce their costs and protect their prices. That has meant we have to do our own scanning now, which I personally don’t mind but I can see why people have issues with it – it’s not always inclusive of everyone’s needs, and of course it turns the work of 20 checkout operators into two jobs helping self-checkout customers.
You can find out more about this at The Grocer:
Sainsbury’s adding AI to checkouts in till upgrade | The Grocer
😂 The one thing that made me laugh:
Filming
Life in the 21st century is all about two things I never heard of in the 20th – socials and personal branding. And so, with a heavy heart, I allowed myself to be interviewed on camera for a promotional video. And I really enjoyed it! The crew were very nice, it was very relaxing, and it gave me a chance to get out my favourite Tim Vine joke:
Crime in multi-storey car parks – it’s wrong on so many levels!
💡 The one thing you can do next week:
Flag Your Emails
If you don’t use flags in Outlook you really should. You can configure a folder called “For follow up” to appear at the top of Outlook which will show everything you’ve flagged and not resolved, regardless of what folder it’s in. It will also create a task for you in Microsoft To-Do which, when you mark it as done, will close the flag in Outlook. And it is the matter of a few minutes to have Power Automate get all your flagged emails and send you a digest every day to remind you to do work.
What’s not to like?
If you are interested to find out how AI, automation and all things clever can help your organisation why not take a look at Future Workplace, our super special IT consultancy service that can supercharge productivity, business efficiency and so much more.
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