Case Study : Amazon Go

In 2016, Amazon launched Amazon Go, a ‘Just Walk Out’ supermarket. They advertised the project with a major marketing campaign.

The project and its aggressive marketing campaign was a source of joke in Saturday Night Live (SNL)

However, the project was eventually terminated in 2026. Several reasons explained such fail :

• Cost: The cost of such technology, which relies on sensors, cameras and AI models, was enormous compared to the low retail margin.
• New manual tasks: In reality, many manual tasks were needed on site. For instance, products needed to be replaced manually to fit the system.
• Privacy issues: Many customers were uncomfortable with being monitored while shopping.
• New constraints: Amazon Go required shoppers to download an app to enter the shop, whereas regular shops could be entered without constraints.
• Theft and errors: The system was far less efficient at identifying theft and errors. This is an issue that is all the more important in a sector with very low margins.

But worst of all, several years later, in 2024, a journalist revealed that the Amazon Go automatic AI system was actually supervised from India by 1,000 human workers.

In the face of this failure, Amazon eventually launched a far less ambitious project: the Amazon Dash Cart.

This example shows how tech companies promote technological imaginaries with the aim of making them performative. However, if they don’t publicise their failures, their innovations are not linear, but rather a series of ups and downs determined by socio-technical constraints.