Shinsegae I&C upgrades AI checkout solution to 99.9% accuracy

'Spharos ScanFree' eliminates barcode scanning

Recognizes products within 0.4 seconds at 99.9% accuracy

A screen view of Spharos ScanFree. When the AI is uncertain about a product, it presents customers with a list of candidates to choose from and learns from their feedback in real time, improving recognition accuracy with each use. [Shinsegae I&C]

Shinsegae I&C announced Tuesday it has upgraded its existing AI checkout solution — which identifies products placed on a checkout counter in a single scan — and relaunched it as Spharos ScanFree.

The company plans to use the upgrade as a springboard to expand beyond domestic retail stores into Asian markets, including Japan. It also intends to integrate large language model (LLM)-based agent capabilities, evolving the solution beyond product recognition and payment into a comprehensive retail platform.

While the previous in-house solution recognized products in one second at 99.5% accuracy, Spharos ScanFree identifies multiple products simultaneously within 0.4 seconds at 99.9% accuracy. Customer wait times are cut by up to nine times compared with conventional self-checkout counters.

The solution can now recognize up to 5,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs). It handles not only packaged goods but also fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables, and even baked items — products without barcodes whose shapes vary from piece to piece.

When visual similarities in shape or color make identification difficult, the system does not guess. Instead, it presents customers with a shortlist of candidates to choose from and learns from their selections in real time, continuously improving its accuracy with use.

A customer uses Spharos ScanCare. After the customer accidentally moved a product to the bagging zone without scanning it, the AI detected the error and prompted a rescan. [Shinsegae I&C]

Spharos ScanFree is currently deployed at a smart store on SK Hynix's Icheon campus. The company is in talks to introduce the solution to a range of retail formats, including bakeries, ready-to-eat food outlets and lifestyle product stores.

Spharos ScanCare, launched in 2024, is also showing tangible results. The solution uses AI vision to analyze self-checkout activity in real time, guiding customers toward accurate scanning. It detects instances where a product was not properly scanned — whether due to customer error or a barcode malfunction — prompts the customer to rescan, and alerts store staff when necessary.

At one retail store that adopted Spharos ScanCare, the frequency of customers calling for staff assistance fell to one-fifth the level seen with conventional self-checkout counters that rely on weight comparison before and after scanning. The store also reduced annual losses from missed scans by up to tens of billions of won.

Shinsegae I&C's AI vision-based solutions run on an edge AI architecture that processes image and video data inside the store without a separate server or external GPU, offering strong data-privacy protection. The solutions can be deployed without modifying existing store systems, and their implementation cost is roughly one-quarter that of competing products.

Building on results validated in the domestic market, the company plans to accelerate its push into Asian markets, starting with Japan.

"Having completed the solution upgrade on the strength of extensive experience accumulated from unmanned stores, we plan to move quickly into both domestic expansion and overseas markets," said Yang Yun-ji, chief executive of Shinsegae I&C. "Going forward, we will integrate LLM-based agent capabilities to develop an expanded solution that supports customer service, product guidance and store operations."

woo@heraldcorp.com