Cameras in stores aren’t anything new—but these days there are AI brains behind the electric eyes. In some stores, sophisticated systems are tracking customers in almost every imaginable way, from recognizing their faces to gauging their age, their mood, and virtually gussying them up with makeup. The systems rarely ask for people’s permission, and for the most part they don’t have to. In our season 1 finale, we look at the explosion of AI and face recognition technologies in retail spaces, and what it means for the future of shopping.

We meet:

RetailNext CTO Arun Nair,

L'Oreal's Technology Incubator Global VP Guive Balooch,

Modiface CEO Parham Aarabi

Biometrics pioneer and Chairman of ID4Africa Joseph Atick

Credits:

This episode was reported and produced by Jennifer Strong, Anthony Green, Tate Ryan-Mosley, Emma Cillekens and Karen Hao. We’re edited by Michael Reilly. Our theme music is by Jacob Gorski.