Shoplifters Cost Stores Billions. UF Professor Speaks on How AI Can Help Curb Store Theft and Fraud
Read Hayes, Ph.D. is a world-renowned expert on the science of stealing from department and grocery stores. Based in FLEX in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, he works with engineering and computer science faculty to help design programs that can identify shoplifters. He is also the director of UF Innovate | Accelerate at The Hub resident company Loss Prevention Research Council, which works with more than 70 major retail chains by providing them with innovative loss- and crime-control solutions.
At Nvidia’s GTC, one of the world’s top technology conferences that focuses on artificial intelligence, Hayes was among five panelists who spoke on how artificial intelligence programs, such as Everseen, can reduce intentional and accidental losses of inventory at registers and self-checkout terminals.
Hayes provided his expertise to Everseen to help their AI identify the behavioral signals of somebody who is struggling to scan an item at a self-checkout terminal, intentionally scanning items incorrectly or not scanning items at all. The program was recently deployed in Kroger grocery stores nationwide.
“My job was to help them refine all the ways that people may make a mistake at a self-checkout,” Hayes said. “The models are designed to recognize somebody who is not scanning in the right way.”
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