For decades, retail execution depended on a clipboard and a sharp eye. Field teams walked the aisles, counted facings, and hand-wrote whether a promotion was live. By the time that data reached headquarters, it was already stale.
From photos to decisions
Computer vision changes the economics of measurement. A single phone photo of a shelf can now be decomposed into product-level data: which SKUs are present, how many facings each holds, whether the planogram is respected, and where competitors are winning space.
- Share of shelf measured objectively, store by store.
- Out-of-stock detection within minutes, not weeks.
- Promo compliance verified from the same image.
The result is a feedback loop fast enough to act on while the rep is still in the store — the difference between knowing and doing.