Meet Neo

Artificial Intelligence is coming to a Walmart near you.

On a recent shopping trip my friend and I were strolling casually down a Walmart aisle debating where we might find the bug suits we were looking for (another story) when I glanced over and saw this making it’s way down the aisle beside us.

Meet Neo!

Developed by Avidbots, Neo is a fully autonomous floor scrubbing robot.

I think I spooked it as I tried to take its picture because it gave a little jerk and narrowly missed side-swiping a big stack of boxed garden furniture, eyeing me suspiciously as it passed by.

I rejected my friend’s suggestion that I stand in front of it to see if it would stop or just trundle over me, not comforted by its uncanny resemblance to the first T1 Terminator model. If that thing didn’t stop for Arnold Schwarzenegger, I’m not confident it would stop for me.

I later read on the company’s website that Neo does in fact have highly advanced obstacle detection so it can avoid colliding with people or other obstacles in its path, which is reassuring.

I think the thing that surprised me the most was seeing Neo in my local Walmart in the heart of rural Manitoba, when I had imagined such technology would be reserved for vast warehouses and depots in distant mega cities.

Neo did cause quite a stir with the shoppers (although some were more amused by me taking pictures of it), and although it’s not much of a conversationalist, I am sure that high on the priority list for the next Neo version will be a repertoire of whistle-while-you-work tunes so it can entertain the severely bored people waiting in the self-checkout lines.

If I were a Walmart greeter, though, I’d be a bit concerned about job security.