Taking retail AI beyond the checkout: a new Muffato Go in Curitiba

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We’re bringing our technology in a new Muffato Go store in Curitiba, Brazil. Built with Grupo Muffato, one of Brazil's largest food retail groups, the store shows how artificial intelligence lets a retailer see, understand and act on everything that happens in its operation.

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Many people first got to know us through autonomous stores. From day one, though, the intelligence behind them was built for a broader goal: giving physical stores the capability and the data to understand and run their own operations in real time. The new Muffato Go puts that into practice, from on-shelf availability and loss detection to automated checkout, fresh produce and the preparation of online orders.

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From the shelf to the office

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Our technology combines computer vision, deep learning, neural networks and sensor data. It recognises products and shopper interactions as they happen, builds a virtual basket and lets shoppers pay without scanning a single barcode.

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Weighing sensors integrated with AI now handle variable-weight products too, so fruit, vegetables and bakery are part of the same experience.

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For the store team, that means an alert when a product needs replenishing and losses spotted as they happen. For head office, it means more accurate information for stock management, store layout and the preparation of online orders.

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"The new Muffato Go shows what artificial intelligence can already do in a physical store. Shoppers can buy faster and more simply, but that is only the visible part. Our models recognise products and shopper interactions as they happen, and store teams get the task they need at the right moment. The real value lies in turning what happens in the store into data that supports the whole business, from the shop floor to head office. That is what we mean by Conscious Spaces: physical spaces that see, understand and act" - Vasco Portugal, CEO and co-founder of Sensei.

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Four years with Grupo Muffato

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Our partnership began in 2022 with the first Muffato Go in Curitiba, our first deployment outside Europe. Four years on, Grupo Muffato is turning Muffato Go into a new business model, and the new store, which Muffato presents as the largest autonomous store in Latin America, is the next step.

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"Innovation and a willingness to take risks are part of who we are. We want to build an ever more efficient retail business, and the new generation of MGO reflects that ambition: using technology to improve the shopping experience. After four years of working with Sensei, this same technology now gives us a clearer view of how the store works, from the shelf to the checkout" - Everton Muffato, Director at Grupo Muffato.

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Building Conscious Spaces

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Over the past years we have kept developing our own AI models, improving product recognition and following hundreds of shopper interactions at the same time. Autonomous checkout is one application of that work. Our goal is broader: with computer vision and AI models built specifically for retail, we're building Conscious Spaces, physical spaces that see what happens, understand how they work and act on it.