UltronAI unlocks retail innovation with the launch of AI-based product identification platform

UltronAI announced the availability of the UltronAI platform, an AI-based computer vision engine built to power the next generation of product-centric retail solutions. With the general availability of the platform, UltronAI has begun to raise its seed round of funding, which follows the successful close of its previous, oversubscribed pre-seed round.

Designed explicitly to work in a high-volume, transactional environment, UltronAI harnesses innovation from decades of research to address unique retail challenges such as high-speed transactions, enormous (and constantly evolving) product catalogs, and variabilities in lighting and product placement.

Product identification built for retail

As more retailers seek to capitalize on the promise of computer vision, widespread adoption in retail has been hindered by limitations on product catalog size, inconsistent store lighting conditions, user behavior, transactional speed, and cost. The UltronAI platform was built explicitly to overcome these challenges in the retail sector.

Specifically, UltronAI’s technology has been calibrated to:

• Support large and growing product catalogs: In addition to the hundreds of thousands of consumer products UltronAI can recognize today, its zero-shot enrollment enables retailers to add new products in just seconds from a single catalog image, rather than the hours or days required by other solutions. In recent tests, UltronAI ingested a large retailer’s 250,000+ product catalog in less than 45 minutes.
• Work in real-world store conditions: Built to achieve accuracy despite environment conditions and without user training, UltronAI excels at identification even when lighting is low and/or products are obstructed or positioned haphazardly.
• Achieve fast, accurate identification: In a real-world, in-store pilot deployment by a large U.S. retailer, UltronAI achieved accuracy comparable to a human against the store’s actual product catalog.

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“The biggest challenge to adoption for computer vision-based product identification is taking it from the lab in small-scale tests to the streets in very large-scale database galleries,” said Dr. Marios Savvides, Founder, Chairman, and CTO of UltronAI. “It’s quite easy to recognize a product from a small gallery when positioned perfectly under bright lights. But correctly identifying an obscured product under poor lighting out of a database of hundreds of thousands of products is actually quite difficult. UltronAI is the outcome of two decades of AI research around object identification and robust, large-scale face recognition. We’ve purpose-built a platform that can support the volume, speed, and store conditions that a typical retailer needs to support.”

Empowering a new generation of retail solutions

UltronAI’s ability to perform accurately in large, complex, and fast-paced retail environments means that retailers and retail solution providers can envision scalable solutions to meet the retail industry’s most challenging problems. Previously, such innovation might be hampered by the limitations of the computer vision engine, UltronAI can fuel new approaches to:

• Loss prevention. UltronAI’s embeddable engine can detect and identify products, validating purchased items and making sure that none get missed.
• Self-checkout. Simultaneous product identification can improve checkout speed while eliminating accidental or intentional losses.
• Grab and go. UltronAI can instantly capture which products customers have taken for faster, more accurate contactless checkout.
• In-store analytics. With better product identification, stores can improve sales and inventory management.
• Shelf monitoring. By embedding UltronAI into solutions for shelf monitoring, retailers can maximize profits by improving product availability and location.

SOURCE: GlobeNewswire