PORT HURON, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) — Forbes recently conducted a survey of store owners and found that nearly four out of five store owners lose between $500 and $2,500 per month due to shoplifting.
Some of them use artificial intelligence to catch buyers in the act.
Shoppers who think they can snag a “buy one” deal at the checkout may have a little more trouble at special cameras. The cameras are equipped with AI detection technology that alerts the owner if someone tries to grab a snack without paying for it.
“Veesion is artificial intelligence that you connect to existing cameras to detect gestures associated with potential shoplifting. For example, when people put items in their jacket, pants, backpack or purse,” said Veesion co-founder Benoit Koenig.
Veesion is present in 4,000 stores worldwide – 500 of them in the US – and that number continues to grow.
Its algorithm analyzes several different cameras simultaneously, looking for subtle clues in ways that the human eye cannot detect.
“The first component is person detection, with the red or green square you can see around each person,” Koenig said. “The second component is called pause estimation, to estimate the position of all body parts. The third component is called object detection, to detect a backpack or purse instead of a shopping bag or shopping cart. All of these components together give you the probability of each gesture at any point in time.”
Because the technology is based solely on the analysis of body movements, Koenig says Veesion is better able to avoid bias when detecting shoplifters than when detecting shoplifters behind the counter.
“The algorithm doesn’t care about people’s appearance, it cares about their gestures. It observes body movements and recognizes a gesture to put an object in a jacket, pants, backpack or handbag,” he said.
If someone tries to pocket some chips without paying, Koenig says, “a little video alert is generated in real time on the store owner’s cellphone, so the store owner can ask the customer if they need help or a basket, so people know they’re being watched. That probably deters the attempt before it actually happens.”
Jack Springgate
