Sentient Retail provides a computer‑vision and AI platform that processes video from existing in‑store cameras to deliver real‑time analytics on shopper movement, dwell time, and shelf inventory. The system generates heatmaps, detects out‑of‑stock and theft‑related anomalies, and streams insights to a cloud dashboard with API integration for POS and ERP systems. It runs edge‑optimized inference to minimize latency and bandwidth while ensuring GDPR‑compliant, anonymized data handling.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Physical retailers often lack real-time, granular visibility into shopper movements and inventory dynamics on the sales floor. Traditional manual audits and point‑of‑sale reports are delayed, labor‑intensive, and insufficient for proactive loss‑prevention or optimal shelf management. Consequently, retailers miss opportunities to adjust merchandising, reduce shrinkage, and improve the in‑store experience.
Solution
Sentient Retail delivers a computer‑vision and AI platform that ingests video streams from existing in‑store cameras and extracts actionable metrics on customer behavior and product flow. Deep‑learning models perform person‑and‑item tracking, generating heatmaps of foot traffic, dwell times, and interaction zones without storing personally identifiable information. The system continuously monitors shelf stock levels, detecting product removal, out‑of‑stock conditions, and restocking events, and flags anomalous patterns that may indicate theft. Processed insights are streamed to a cloud‑based analytics dashboard and exposed via APIs for integration with point‑of‑sale, inventory, and ERP systems, enabling retailers to make data‑driven merchandising and loss‑prevention decisions in near real‑time.
Target Audience
The primary customers are mid‑size to large brick‑and‑mortar retailers—including grocery chains, department stores, and specialty merchants—who operate multiple locations and require data‑driven store operations and loss‑prevention capabilities.
Features
- Edge‑optimized AI inference on video feeds for sub‑second latency and reduced bandwidth usage
- Multi‑camera stitching with cross‑view person and SKU tracking to maintain continuous trajectories across the store
- Real‑time heatmap and dwell‑time analytics visualized on an interactive dashboard
- Shelf‑level inventory monitoring that detects product pick‑up, out‑of‑stock, and restocking events using object detection models
- Automated loss‑prevention alerts based on behavior anomaly detection (e.g., loitering, rapid item removal)
- RESTful API suite for seamless integration with POS, ERP, and inventory management platforms
- GDPR‑compliant data handling: facial features are blurred, and only anonymized movement vectors are stored
- Secure, encrypted cloud storage with role‑based access controls for audit trails and compliance reporting