Toshiba expands Elera commerce platform with AI vision, IT microservices and data analysis | ZDNet

Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions this week announced a major expansion of its Elera commerce platform, first launched one year ago and now adding AI vision recognition and several other key enhancements. 

Since the launch, Toshiba has developed additional IT microservices, for a total of 45, and hundreds of APIs to help retailers integrate other apps and try out new ideas.

“The platform is designed to be agile and allow retailers to rapidly implement innovative solutions and either quickly fail or if successful – then have the ability to scale things across their retail network,” said Yevgeni Tsirulnik, Vice President, digital portfolio and innovation at Toshiba.

New features include support for a wide variety of edge devices such as cameras at the point of checkout that are combined with an AI vision system for a much speedier self-checkout. The camera can accurately identify loose produce – such as a potato versus a sweet potato – and speed up the checkout process without the shopper having to look-up the billing code for the items. 

Toshiba discovered that about 35% of shoppers do not trust self-checkout systems to accurately identify loose produce items and won’t use them. The AI vision system should go a long way in gaining the trust of shoppers to use the self-checkouts.

Edge devices such as sensors and cameras can also be used to compile studies on how shoppers shop. Video and sensor data is converted into a vector-based map of people’s movements without storing any personal information or images. 

Toshiba also beefed up its data analytics to provide organizations with a central view across all their retail channels which were previously operating separately from each other. 

The same approach has been taken with the creation of a single payments engine able to handle many different forms of payment services. This allows for real-time inventory data – which is essential as retailers combine online ordering with pickup and delivery services. 

“We are finding that retailers have greatly increased their digital business plans and are moving much faster than we expected. We’ve had to double the pace of our development,” says Tsirulnik.

A recent survey of 2,100 consumers by Toshiba and PYMNTS.com found that more than one-third (35%) reported that they would consider switching retailers based on the quality of the digital engagement. 

Elera says that its microservices IT architecture helps to make the platform future-proof. Even though retail hardware will change in the future, and there are many hundreds of different edge devices –  there will be no need to recreate core IT services.