The Global Rollout of Retail and Surveillance Automation: It’s not just manufacturing that is getting an overhaul. In this month’s robot tech report, we take a look at how the new automation technology is taking strides in the complete takeover of every industry across the board. Manufacturing, warehousing, shipping & logistics, administration, customer service, retail outlets and even policing.
🤖 Seven-Eleven Japan & Telexistence — Building the Largest Humanoid Workforce
The Partnership:
- Seven-Eleven Japan has teamed up with Tokyo-based robotics firm Telexistence to deploy Astra, a humanoid robot designed to handle stocking, cleaning, and customer interaction across its 20,000-store empire.
- This isn’t a pilot—it’s a full-scale labor replacement strategy aimed at solving Japan’s demographic labor crisis.
Key Details:
- Astra is powered by a Vision-Language-Action (VLA) foundation model trained on massive retail datasets.
- Telexistence’s existing “Ghost” beverage restocking bots are already operating in Tokyo stores, serving as real-world data collection platforms.
- Toyota and top universities (Waseda, University of Tokyo) are involved via the AI Robot Association (AIRoA), accelerating hardware development and dataset generation.
Sources:
Why It Matters: Japan isn’t just automating—it’s institutionalizing humanoid labor. If Astra scales, it will be the largest humanoid deployment in retail history. The goal isn’t novelty; it’s operational dominance. And once the VLA model is trained across 20K stores, it becomes a retail brain with muscle memory.
🛸Flock Safety’s Autonomous Drones — Surveillance as a Service
The Pivot:
- Flock Safety, infamous for its license plate readers, is now selling autonomous drones to retailers to chase suspected shoplifters in real time.
- These drones launch from rooftop docking stations when alarms trigger, stream live video, and track suspects across parking lots and streets.
Key Details:
- Drones integrate with existing alarm systems and can cover up to 38 square miles per dock.
- Real-time feeds are sent to corporate security teams—and potentially police.
- FAA waivers allow “beyond visual line of sight” operations, expanding surveillance range.
Sources:
Why It Matters: This is privatized surveillance with no public oversight. Unlike police drones, these answer to shareholders. Once normalized, they could be repurposed to monitor union activity, protest movements, or even customer behavior. Mission creep isn’t a bug—it’s the business model.
⚙️ The Rise of the Global Robot Workforce: A Quiet Revolution
While AI headlines dominate, the real global rollout labor shift is happening in hardware. Robots are no longer confined to factories—they’re entering retail, logistics, agriculture, aquaculture, and even construction. Here’s the global rollout in brief:
🌏 Global Robot Projects (Quick Hits)
| Country/Company | Project | Highlights |
|---|---|---|
| 🇨🇳 China | Shijingshan Humanoid Training Base | 10K sq meters, 6M data points/year for humanoid training |
| 🇰🇷 South Korea (CJ Logistics) | Dexterous Warehouse Humanoids | $3M gov-backed, hands capable of complex tasks by 2028 |
| 🇦🇺 Australia (SwarmFarm Robotics) | Automated Farming Expansion | $30M raised to scale sustainable agri-bots in North America |
| 🇺🇸 Westlake Robotics | General Action Expert | “Shadow Function” AI lets robots mirror human movements in real time |
| 🌊 CIRTESU | Robot Fish | Wireless inspection bots for aquaculture and port maintenance |
| 🇺🇸 UC Berkeley | Shape-Shifting Truss Bots | AI framework for designing dynamic, morphing robots |
| 🇨🇳 Unitree Robotics | G1 Humanoid | Pulled off a butterfly twist—yes, parkour is now robotic |
🧠 Final Nut Assessment: The Quiet Replacement
While marketers debate prompt engineering and execs chase AI dashboards, the robot labor force is quietly being deployed at scale. These aren’t sci-fi prototypes—they’re operational systems with funding, partnerships, and rollout timelines.
The progression of robot tech is creeping up on us while most are not looking. With all the turmoil in the news and political atmosphere, the public is distracted from the corporations cutting into the human workforce at an exponential rate.
If we don’t pay attention, we won’t just be outpaced—we’ll be replaced before we even see it coming. The future isn’t just automated. It’s embodied.
Any questions or concerns comment below or Contact Us here.
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