In Los Angeles, a 6-foot grocery robot scans shelves, and workers fear what's next

Some Los Angeles grocery stores are using a six-foot robot with blinking eyes and purple-and-green lights to patrol aisles and flag missing, misplaced, and other inventory problems.

While the technology is intended to help stores better track products, some shoppers and workers say it feels more like a glimpse of a more automated — and less human — future.

Here's what to know

The robot is called Tally, and Kroger-owned Ralphs has introduced it in some Los Angeles stores, joining other retailers, including Bristol Farms in Santa Monica, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Burlingame-based company Simbe Robotics makes Tally, which scans shelves as it travels the store for items that are low, unavailable, or shelved in the wrong spot.

Simbe said more than 3,000 of its robots have been contracted worldwide, while Fortune Business Insights estimated the retail automation market could grow from $28 billion in 2025 to $77 billion by 2034. A LinkedIn post from a manager at Kroger-operated Smith's Food and Drug stores said Kroger deployed its 500th robot across the company in August.

When Ricardo Valadez, a 62-year-old Mid-City real estate agent, encountered the machine at Ralphs, he said his first reaction was that it seemed to be following him.

"I was kind of like, 'What the hell is that?'" he told the Times. "I don't know why; I felt that it was following me." 

More background

Workers have also raised concerns about the kinds of jobs the robot could eventually replace.

Rachel Fournier, who works at the Ralphs at Vermont Avenue and Adams Boulevard, said Tally "just showed up out of nowhere," adding that self-checkout stations and digital shelf tags have already changed the kind of work store employees do, the Times reported.

"Our members should not be finding out about major changes to their workplace only after new technology shows up in their stores," said Kathy Finn, president of UFCW Local 770. "Checking shelves, identifying out-of-stock products, and maintaining store conditions are all areas where our members perform important work every day."

Simbe's latest Tally 4.0 uses newer Nvidia chips, and Kroger chief financial officer David Kennerley said in March that the company was spending aggressively on artificial intelligence to save money.

As the Times pointed out, Jennifer Boulanger of Mid-City posted a video on Nextdoor and criticized the robot as "more lost jobs to AI junk," adding that she wanted to shop somewhere with less automation.

What's being done?

Retailers and robotics companies say the machines are meant to support workers, not replace them.

"Simbe provides shelf intelligence technology that helps store teams more easily identify and address products that are low or out of stock, giving associates better information to support store operations and serve shoppers," a Simbe Robotics spokesperson said, according to the Times.

The company also said Tally is "designed to understand shelf conditions, not identify or track humans."

In January, Simbe introduced Tally 4.0, saying the updated robot scans shelves more quickly and helps stores analyze product placement, pricing, promotions, and merchandising conditions.

Workers and unions are pushing for guardrails. In a statement about Tally deployments at Kroger-owned Fred Meyer stores, a United Food and Commercial Workers International Union branch warned, "We believe outsourcing our union jobs to robots will erode our unity in the worksite, reduce available hours for those who need them to pay the rent, and threaten the stability of our benefits."

Policy resistance to other forms of grocery automation has already emerged. Union members also helped back a Long Beach ordinance requiring grocery chains to increase staffing relative to self-checkout stands.

"Even an inventory job, like now, that's being shopped out to a computer," Fournier said. "What are they trying to do here?"

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