Amazon’s Checkout-Free Store Will Still Require a Human to Check IDs for Alcohol

Amazon’s convenience store of the future is one that features no cashiers and no checkouts. It’s a largely human-free experience—but the company will need at least one human onsite to check IDs because Amazon wants to sell higher-margin products alcohol.

Amazon Go, as it is called, is an app-based grocery store that is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. The test store, located in Seattle, plans to sell beer and wine and Amazon confirmed to Recode this week that means someone will have to check IDs—no robot for this role quite yet, it seems.

Amazon Go is currently only open to employees but the company says it plans to open the 1,800-square-foot shop to the public soon.

Amazon Opens Beta of Go, an App-Based Grocery Store With No Checkout