he Middle East on Monday got its first completely automated cashier-less store, as retail giant Carrefour rolled out its vision for the future of the industry in a cavernous Dubai mall.

Like Amazon�s breakthrough unmanned grocery stores that opened in 2018, the Carrefour mini-market looks like any ordinary convenience store, brimming with sodas and snacks, tucked between sprawling storefronts of this city-state.

But hidden among the familiar fare lies a sophisticated system that tracks shoppers� movements, eliminating the checkout line and allowing people to grab the products they�ll walk out with. Only those with the store�s smartphone app may enter. Nearly a hundred small surveillance cameras blanket the ceiling. Countless sensors line the shelves. Five minutes after shoppers leave, their phones ping with receipts for whatever they put in their bags.

�This is how the future will look,� Hani Weiss, CEO of retail at Majid Al Futtaim, the franchise that operates Carrefour in the Middle East, told The Associated Press. �We do believe in physical stores in the future. However, we believe the experience will change.�

The experimental shop, called Carrefour City+, is the latest addition to the burgeoning field of retail automation. Major retailers worldwide are combining machine learning software and artificial intelligence in a push to cut labor costs, do away with the irritation of long lines and gather critical data about shopping behavior.

�We use (the data) to provide a better experience in the future � whereby customers don�t have to think about the next products they want,� Weiss said. �All the insights are being utilized internally in order to provide a better shopping experience.�

Customers must give Carrefour permission to collect their information, Weiss said, which the company promises not to share. But the idea of a vast retail seller collecting reams of data about shoppers� habits already has raised privacy concerns in the United States, where Amazon now operates several such futuristic stores, known as Amazon Go. It�s less likely to become a public debate in the autocratic United Arab Emirates, home to one of the world�s highest per capita concentrations of surveillance cameras.

With the pandemic forcing major retailers to reassess the future, many are increasingly investing in automation � a vision that threatens severe job losses across the industry. But Carrefour stressed that human workers, at least in the short-term, would still be needed to �support customers� and assist the machines.

�There is no future without humans,� Weiss said.

(AP)