Scanning shelves and navigating shoppers
San Francisco-based retail technology company Simbe developed Tally. Its sensors help it navigate around customers and employees: if someone blocks its path, it waits until the person moves before continuing.
Simbe's specifications put Tally's speed at less than a third of a person's walking pace. The company says the robot uses dozens of sensors to navigate busy spaces and identifies shelf labels with 99% accuracy.
In a January announcement, Simbe described improvements to its latest model, Tally 4.0, including up to 12 hours of operation, higher-resolution cameras and broader 3D and 360-degree coverage. According to the company, those changes let it check a larger portion of a store more often and deliver information about availability, prices and product placement sooner.
Tally 4.0 also uses newer Nvidia chips, according to Los Angeles Times reporting summarized by Yahoo News. Simbe says its NVIDIA edge technology processes shelf data in real time.
Simbe co-founder and CEO Brad Bogolea described the company's aim in the January release: "The future of retail depends on closing the gap between digital decision-making and physical execution." He added: "With Tally 4 we're delivering the next foundation of shelf-level data infrastructure that connects the two, giving retailers a trusted source of ground truth to power AI-driven operations at enterprise scale."
Deployment figures and reported results
Simbe's website lists Tally as operating at 75 U.S. stores. The company introduced the robot in 2015 and said that, as of March 2025, deployments extended to nearly 1,000 stores across three continents and five industries.
Other figures describe contracts and Kroger's rollout. According to the Los Angeles Times, Simbe says more than 3,000 robots have been contracted worldwide. The newspaper also cited a LinkedIn post by a manager at Kroger-operated Smith's Food and Drug stores saying Kroger deployed its 500th robot companywide in August.
Simbe says a typical store installation takes one day, including mapping the premises and connecting the robot with existing inventory and pricing systems. Retailer Country Supplier expanded from a three-store pilot to deployment at all 55 stores in less than four months, according to the company.
The company also reports that stores using Tally have halved the time needed to fulfill online orders, reduced out-of-stock items by 60% and cut pricing errors by 90%.
A forecast from Fortune Business Insights, cited in coverage of Tally's expansion, estimated that the retail automation market could rise from $28 billion in 2025 to $77 billion in 2034.
Kroger's broader AI strategy
City Market's parent, The Kroger Co., outlined a broader AI initiative on Sept. 22. It said it was expanding the use of its own models and those developed by third parties to simplify workflows, support decisions and help employees with daily tasks. Kroger also said it was making AI tools and training available to more than 400,000 employees across its operations.
In the September release, Yael Cosset said: "The goal is not autonomy everywhere." Cosset continued: "The goal is using the right level of AI based on risk, repeatability and the need for human judgment. Different cases will sit at different stages and strong governance remains at the center."
The Durango Herald reported that repeated calls to Kroger spokeswoman Jessica Trowbridge seeking comment went unanswered Friday.
Corporate cuts and union concerns
In mid-October 2026, Reuters reported that Kroger planned to cut approximately 3,000 corporate positions over three years while expanding AI use and reducing costs. Citing an internal memo from CEO Greg Foran, the report put the planned reduction at roughly 37% of Kroger's approximately 8,200 corporate employees.
Labor unions have also challenged Tally deployments, according to the Los Angeles Times reporting. UFCW Local 770 president Kathy Finn said members "should not be finding out about major changes to their workplace only after new technology shows up in their stores."
A branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union warned that transferring union work to robots would weaken workplace unity, leave fewer hours available to workers and put the stability of their benefits at risk.
