AI only matters to businesses if the technology enables competitive differentiation or drives increased efficiencies. The past year has seen technology companies focus on training models that promise to change enterprises across industries. While training has been the focus, the recent NVIDIA GTC event showcased a rapid transition towards inference, where actual business value lay.
AI at the Retail Edge
Retail is one of the industries that promises to benefit most from AI. Generative AI and large language models aside, retail organizations are already deploying image recognition systems for diverse tasks, from inventory control and loss prevention to customer service.
Earlier this year, Nvidia published its 2024 State of AI in Retail and CPG report that takes a survey-based approach to understanding the use of AI in the retail sector. Nvidia found that 42% percent of retailers already use AI, with an additional 34% assessing or piloting AI programs. Narrowing the aperture, among large retailers with revenues of more than $500 million, the adoption of AI stretches to 64%. That’s a massive market.
AI is showing a solid return on investment for retailers. Most of those surveyed by Nvidia believe that AI has contributed to an increase in annual revenue, up to 15% or more in many cases. At the same time, the bulk of respondents highlighted a corresponding decrease in operating costs. The benefit is there.
The challenge for retailers and the array of ecosystem partners catering to them is that AI can be complex. Large language models and generative AI require infrastructure that scales beyond the capabilities of many retail locations. Using the cloud to solve those problems isn’t always practical, either, as applications like vision processing need to be done at the edge, where the data lives.
Sony’s Platform Approach to On-Device Inference
Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation took on the challenge of simplifying vision processing and inference, resulting in the introduction of its AITRIOS edge AI sensing platform. AITRIOS addresses six significant cloud challenges based IoT systems, including handling large data volumes, enhancing data privacy, reducing latency, conserving energy, ensuring service continuity, and securing data.
AITRIOS accelerates the deployment of edge AI-powered sensing solutions across industries, enabling a comprehensive ecosystem for creating solutions that blend edge computing and cloud technologies.
Sony’s solution works by developing hyper-efficient inference capabilities that are then integrated directly into a sensing device. This keeps the massive amounts of vision data local and reduces the volume of data that needs to be moved by processing that data on the device. This has the added benefit of ensuring privacy, minimizing latency through edge-side processing, and enhancing security by only transmitting essential information to the cloud.
By reducing data sent to and processed within the cloud, AITRIOS reduces electric power consumption and delays in data transmission, offering advantages in privacy, security, and service continuity.
The heart of the solution is Sony’s IMX500 intelligent vision sensor, equipped with AI processing functionality, which provides high-speed AI processing and metadata output directly on the sensor. Only metadata needs to be sent to the cloud for action.
AITRIOS helps retailers and logistics companies by digitalizing the physical world of brick-and-mortar locations. It provides AI insights to solve problems like on-shelf availability and optimize store operations.
Real World Use
Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Hacobu, and Restar Electronics recently announced a partnership to develop a service that leverages SSS’s AITRIOS edge AI technology to enhance efficiency in logistics warehouses’ loading and unloading areas. The service automates the capture of usage records and work times, significantly reducing drivers’ workloads.
The joint solution incorporates SSS’s AITRIOS platform for edge AI and vision AI solutions, Hacobu’s truck reservation service, “MOVO Berth,” and a Restar-developed app for matching and identifying trucks through license plate recognition, streamlining logistics warehouse operations.
One of the service’s highest-return features is the use of edge devices with AI capabilities to detect and recognize license plates, automating the recording of truck entry and exit times. This approach minimizes manual input errors and omissions enhances data accuracy and optimizes driver work hours by reducing unnecessary waiting times.
The collaboration also aims to extend the service to more logistics and transportation companies, supporting efficient, sustainable operations and fair working conditions industry wide.
Analyst’s Take
Sony isn’t just dabbling in edge AI; the company is carving out a definitive space in the rapidly evolving AI-enabled IoT landscape. Its AITRIOS platform clearly demonstrates SSS’s strategy is aligned to increasing concerns over cloud-based system limitations for environments like the retail edge, logistics, and manufacturing.
AITRIOS brings centralized cloud computing to distributed edge AI. Sony is at the forefront of the transition in using AI from a central data-processing model to on-device inference, which can provide real-time data analytics without the privacy and latency challenges of sending data to the cloud.
Its strategic partnerships with companies like Microsoft and integrations like Azure Open AI show Sony embedding AITRIOS deeply across an ecosystem of vertically targeted AI applications, such as retail. This move is particularly savvy, potentially opening up numerous avenues for cross-platform collaborations and innovation.
Sony’s AITRIOS could be a game-changer for industries reliant on real-time data and AI, given its potential to offer enhanced privacy, reduced latency, and improved energy efficiency. However, the success of such a platform will ultimately depend on widespread adoption and the continuous evolution of its capabilities in response to the dynamic demands of IoT applications. Industries, like retail, are ready.
