Tesco is trialling an autonomous robot that roams supermarket aisles looking for empty shelves, misplaced products and incorrect prices.

The company is testing Simbe Robotics’ Tally robot in one store, with plans to extend the pilot to a small number of additional locations.

Standing around five feet tall, Tally uses artificial intelligence, cameras and computer vision to travel independently through the aisles and scan the products on shelves.

The technology checks stock availability, product positioning and shelf-edge pricing before sending the information back to store teams, allowing colleagues to respond quickly when an item needs replenishing or correcting.

Tesco said the robots would help identify gaps on shelves and give staff better information to improve product availability for shoppers.

Tally can complete several scans of a store each day, automating work that would ordinarily require colleagues to walk the aisles and manually inspect thousands of products.

Its manufacturer claims the robot can detect up to 10 times more out-of-stock products than manual shelf audits. Simbe said its technology has identified more than 607 million instances of products being unavailable across its global deployments.

The robot is designed to move around customers and obstacles without disrupting the shopping experience, returning automatically to its charging station when required.

Tesco’s trial could prove particularly useful in larger supermarkets, where gaps can be difficult to spot quickly and missing products can result in lost sales, even when replacement stock is available elsewhere in the building.

Tesco is not the first UK supermarket to test Tally. Morrisons began trialling it in three stores last year, using the robots to check that products were displayed correctly, accurately priced and legally compliant.

The machines are already used by retailers in Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East, including Carrefour and a number of major American grocery chains.

Tesco has not indicated how long the initial trial will run or whether it could lead to a wider rollout across its estate.

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