Sony Semiconductor Solutions' Edge AI Sensing Platform "AITRIOS" to Expand Streamlined Solutions Through Partnerships with Retail and Logistics Players

Demonstrating its vision-based edge AI technology in North America at NRF 2024:
Retail's Big Show in Booth #6529

ATSUGI, Japan, Dec. 11, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Sony Semiconductor Solutions ("SSS") shares continued momentum for its edge AI sensing platform, AITRIOS™, in partnership with key retail and logistics players, including convenience, pharmacy, and logistics solution providers. Several of which will be showcased onsite at the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2024: Retail's Big Show in New York City, January 14-16^th.

The AITRIOS platform, originally debuted at NRF Big Show 2023, enables retailers to visualize the physical world of brick-and-mortar digitally, providing them with AI insights to solve for problems such as on-shelf availability, planogram compliance, staffing shortages, and optimize areas like merchandising and store operations. AITRIOS provides partners and customers with the tools, Software Development Kits (SDKs), and developer environments necessary to reduce costs and complexity, improve time-to-market and measurable Return on Investment (ROI), and deploy visual solutions at scale, all while providing advanced privacy controls.

In the year since AITRIOS was unveiled, SSS has furthered its commitment towards democratizing vision-based edge AI (vision AI), in the pursuit of making the technology more accessible across industries. With lower barriers to entry than traditional computer vision and AI, AITRIOS can help improve employee, customer, and retailer satisfaction from end-to-end of the manufacturing to purchasing journey. In November 2023, AITRIOS was also named a winner of Fast Company's 'Next Big Thing in Tech' awards, under the 'AI and Data' Category.

Under the partnership with Microsoft since 2020, SSS and Microsoft continue to work closely, including SSS's ongoing participation in the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs, which helps partners bring their solutions to life. In 2023 alone, SSS has become a contributor to Microsoft's newly opened San Francisco, U.S. and Kobe, Japan labs.

Additional recent initiatives with partners include:

• Lawson (Convenience Store Chain): Shelf monitoring system utilizes AITRIOS to reduce loss of sales opportunities and streamlines the time required for employees to monitor shelf inventory manually.
• NEC (IT solution provider): An AITRIOS-based solution visualizes vacant shelf space in warehouse operations. By combining AITRIOS with known schedules of incoming and outgoing cargo shipments, AITRIOS recommends suitable shelf space, which helps to improve the time needed to offload and store items.
• MITSUI-SOKO (Supply Chain Solution): AITRIOS helps MITSUI-SOKO's systems reduce idle time for drivers and supports improved work hours for warehouse employees by automating the acquisition of berth usage by trucks and optimizing workflows, allowing employees time to do more-interesting work.
• Village Vanguard (Books and Goods Chain): With a signage solution, supported by AITRIOS vision AI, Village Vanguard investigates viewership of promotional videos and advertising on in-store screens by tracking time spent by individuals in front of the signage to support improvement towards more-engaging and preferred content.

"The AITRIOS platform is designed to democratize vision-based edge AI and enables retailers the ability to tailor their entire store operation and scale it across their business, all on a single platform," said Eita Yanagisawa, Senior General Manager of System Solution Business Division, Sony Semiconductor Solutions. "Sony is also accelerating its initiatives with more partners around the world and is extremely excited to see a variety of projects and solutions that are nearly ready for retailers' front and back-of-house use."

Highlights of Sony Semiconductor Solutions at NRF: Retail's Big Show (Booth #6529)

• Demonstrations will include:
  • On-Shelf Availability (sales floor demo): experience how AITRIOS supports retailers with visualizing the status of shelves on the store floor, showcased by our real-life experiment conducted at Lawson convenience stores from March to August 2023.
  • Real-Time Inventory Counts (back-of-house demo): reading barcodes across warehouses and stockrooms can be technically difficult to achieve. In this demo, see how AITRIOS supports high-speed, accurate barcode scanning to provide real-time inventory counts that improve operational efficiency.
    
    
• "Store of the Future" with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service (part of the Avanade showcase; demos available by reservation (Booth #4A1))
  • Together with Microsoft and Avanade, we will demonstrate how retailers can improve operational efficiency with AITRIOS and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. The demo will show how generative AI can integrate into and improve the employee experience by supporting tasks like ordering, store promotion buildout, and inventory management. Visitors will also experience customer stories to see how Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service can support the shopping experience in new, intuitive ways.

For more information, visit the AITRIOS website and visit Sony Semiconductor Solutions at booth #6529 at this year's NRF: Retail's Big Show. For more on how to schedule a live demo in Avanade's NRF showcase, please visit here.

For information on Fast Company's 'Next Big Thing in Tech Award' for AITRIOS, visit their website, here.

ABOUT SONY SEMICONDUCTOR SOLUTIONS
Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation and the global leader in image sensors. We strive to provide advanced imaging technologies that bring greater convenience and joy to people's lives. In addition, we also work to develop and bring to market new kinds of sensing technologies with the aim of offering various solutions that will take the visual and recognition capabilities of both humans and machines to greater heights. Visit us at: https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/
Corporate slogan "Sense the Wonder": https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/company/vision/index.html

* AITRIOS and AITRIOS logos are the registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Group Corporation or its affiliated companies.

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