A Supermarket Superstar

[“A cross between a hammerhead shark and a marital aid”]
Five years ago, I met a robot named Marty who was working at the supermarket. It was somewhat disconcerting to be confronted with a near seven-foot-tall automaton while picking up cereal at Stop & Shop. Still, at least it looked cheerful:

[Photo courtesy of P. Kafasis]

In addition to an amusing pair of googly eyes, Marty featured a sticker mouth that explained its purpose. That mouthful read:

This store is monitored by Marty for your safety. Marty is an autonomous robot that uses image capturing technology to report spills, debris and other potential hazards to store employees to improve your shopping experience.

The same text was also seen featured lower down on Marty’s body, on a second sticker which included a portrait of the robot. I was initially confused by this duplication, but after some thought, I suspect it’s deliberate. The second sticker is right at kid level.

When I first spotted Marty back in 2019, it had planted itself in one spot, where it was quite literally crying over spilled milk. A human employee eventually came by to clean up the mess, muttering “Alright, Marty, alright. I got it, I got it.” While Marty could indeed detect spills, it was powerless to clean them.

Marty seemed like a fairly unnecessary addition, and the employee’s reaction indicated to me that it was far from a valued teammate. Five years later, however, Marty has leveled up in more ways than one. It’s gained new abilities and become a brand ambassador for Stop & Shop. Now, Boston Magazine has an enjoyable profile of the robot, which includes these details:

And here is the too-good-to-be-true-but-it’s-true part of the origin story: Before Marty’s official deployment in 2019, he was doing a pilot run at one of Stop & Shop’s sister stores, a Giant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, when a store associate decided something was missing. She went to a craft store and bought a pair of stick-on eyes. Sometime thereafter, the robot started showing up in stores with a mouth—sometimes a coy smile, sometimes a grin wide enough to include a written message. And Stop & Shop finally gave him a name, which is technically an acronym for “Mobile Autonomous Robot Technology.”

That’s some solid work.

Link: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2024/09/12/marty-the-robot-stop-and-shop