🦔Only 36% of retailers plan to spend money on self-checkout this year, down 7 points from 2025, according to a survey of 340 retail operators. It ranked as the least popular store technology in the survey and the only one where interest fell. My Take Self-checkout was the original pitch to replace workers with machines, and it never delivered what it promised. Customers scan slower than trained cashiers, the machines throw errors, and more merchandise walks out the door, so stores kept employees at the kiosks anyway. Dollar General pulled self-checkout from 300 of its highest-theft stores in 2024 and capped the rest at five items. Amazon dropped its no-checkout tech from its grocery stores that same year, after reports that workers in India reviewed many of the purchases. Amazon disputed that. To me, AI follows the same path, just faster. Companies announce layoffs and credit AI, but the press release never counts the cost of the mistakes or the people hired back to check the machine's work. Klarna already went back to hiring humans for customer service after leaning hard on AI. Self-checkout took decades to show its full cost. AI won't get that long because the bills run so much bigger, and I expect plenty of AI efficiency layoffs to turn into quiet rehiring within two years. Hedgie🤗