BurgerBots may be pioneering the future of fast-food work by including robotic assembly lines.

Shake Shack is now trying to automate the burger delivery process.

Bear Robotics, a startup headquartered in Redwood City, California, that is setting out to make hospitality management easier is being backed by LG Electronics for $60 million.

In a nondescript Amazon warehouse near Seattle, employees recently encountered the future of work: a 5-foot-9-inch robot named Digit. As humanoid robots like Digit join warehouse operations, what ethical considerations should leaders prioritize to ensure fair treatment of both human and robotic workers?

Retail has already witnessed some major forms of automation implemented at scale, and a major player in the segment recently laid out a tight timeline along which people should expect more. Do you believe that 65 percent of all retail work can be automated within the next few years and, if so, what would that mean for people working in the industry?

The biggest U.S. fast food chain is planning some corporate job cuts even as it pursues a nationwide store expansion. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for McDonald’s to grow its business in the U.S. through its “Accelerating the Arches” strategy?

McDonald’s last week opened its first partially automated restaurant, with machines handling everything from taking orders to delivering the food. The opening sparked both positive and negative responses on social media. Will the efficiencies gained from an automated restaurant such as McDonald’s pilot offset any aspects lost from removing human interaction?

After a successful three-store pilot program, Walmart drone delivery has launched in a handful of markets, with plans to expand soon to six states. How confident are you that drone delivery will be sustainable and soon scale nationwide?

Macy’s recently announced that it has carved out roughly one million square feet across 35 stores to efficiently fulfill online orders in local markets at a reduced cost. How do you see Macy’s semi-automated store-level and large warehouse fulfillment centers working together?

Walmart’s strategy for owning the last mile has come into clearer focus with news that the retailer has acquired the robotics automation specialist Alert Innovation. What will Walmart’s acquisition of Alert Innovation mean for its last mile fulfillment?

Walgreens continues to open automated pharmacies as it moves towards its goal of having 22 of the facilities in operation across the country by 2025. How will robo-pharmacies change the physical store layouts and other aspects of the drugstore business?

Kroger is introducing a temperature-controlled electronic cart to speed up its curbside fulfillment. What do you see as the biggest challenges that retailers face with curbside pickup and how can technology address these?

Shoppers at some Target locations can now get a 10-minute manicure from a robot. The service has been getting a boost in popularity, thanks to videos posted on TikTok. Do you see robotic manicures as being helpful in drawing customers to retail stores?

Amazon.com on Friday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire iRobot, the maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaner, in an all-cash transaction valued around $1.7 billion. What do you think is the strategy behind Amazon’s deal to acquire iRobot?

Supermarket retailers are faced with a huge labor challenge. The explosion of ecommerce is amplifying this by creating the need for more order pickers to manually fulfill e-grocery orders from stores. What are the best strategies and tactics for grocery retailers when bringing in automation to replace manual online order fulfillment at the store level?

Thirty-four Sam’s Club locations in the Dallas/Fort  Worth area will soon be receiving shipments of Quilted Northern toilet paper and Dixie products via autonomous 26-foot box trucks. Do you think autonomous box trucks will be largely able to replace traditional tractor middle-mile deliveries to retailers in the future?

Walmart is counting on four high-tech fulfillment centers (FCs) to further drive its same-day and next-day delivery ambitions. Will automated warehouses ultimately be more important to same-day and next-day delivery than in-store fulfillment?

Walmart is motivated to get automated. The retailing giant yesterday said that it is expanding its use of robotics to all 42 of its regional distribution centers around the U.S. What are your takeaways from Walmart’s news about its expanded use of robotics in its regional warehouses and for last-mile delivery via drone?

Los Angelenos won’t have to wait on the ice cream truck rolling into their neighborhoods this summer on irregular schedules. They can simply go on an app and hail the truck to come to them. Do you expect consumers in Los Angeles to go for The Ice Cream Shop Robomarts?

An Oracle study finds 93 percent of business leaders would trust a bot over a human to make decisions on environmental, social, and governance programs. Are human biases and emotions holding back progress within organizations around sustainability and ESG initiatives?

It was not so long ago that package delivery drones, specifically ones from Amazon.com, seemed poised to take flight as soon as the right regulatory bodies signed off. At present, however, the concept of package drop-off via drone is looking like it could be a dud.  Do you see Amazon overcoming its obstacles with flying drone package delivery?

Automated grocery stores have been slowly but surely popping up worldwide since the launch of Amazon Go. Now a checkout-free concept is on its way to college campuses, along with some other new tech-enhanced food solutions for students.  Do you expect that the reaction to autonomous grocers on campuses will be different than in general markets?

Walgreens will use robots to fill customers’ prescriptions in 22 micro-fulfillment centers the chain is opening in the next three years across the U.S. What impact will widespread use of robotics have on retail pharmacy operations in the U.S.?

While ingredient scooping and burrito rolling remain in the hands of human staff at Chipotle for now, tortilla chip-making duties at the chain may soon be managed by robots. What roles do you see robots playing  in restaurants over the next five years?

Inventory tracking robots did not work out for Walmart, but now the company is trying them out at Sam’s Club.  Why factors make you think that inventory robots may have success at Sam’s Club in light of the experience at Walmart?

Shopify Fulfillment Network has never gained serious traction since its launch in 2019 and it appears that the company is at a crossroads with its approach. Do you agree with Shopify’s strategy to offer its customers fulfillment services?

Full-sized autonomous vehicles can make pedestrians and other drivers a little nervous. One of the big startups in the autonomous grocery delivery space is trying to address that with a safety measure meant to soften the impact of the new technology. What do you see as the main obstacles to autonomous vehicles being used for grocery delivery?

The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com has opened two robotic stores in the Netherlands with plans to add two more. The debut of the stores, which merge online ordering with in-store pickup, marks the company’s first foray into Europe. What interests you most about the ochama concept being launched by JD.com in The Netherlands?

Walmart has broken ground in Texas on a 1.5-million-square-foot automated e-commerce fulfillment center and a 730,000-square-foot grocery distribution center in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Will automated warehouses enable Walmart to keep up with Kroger, Amazon and other rivals making big investments in their supply chain infrastructure?

Walmart is making daily deliveries from a dark store to a Neighborhood Market in Bentonville, AR using an autonomous vehicle that doesn’t carry a safety driver — a world first, according to the retailer and its technology partner, Gatik. Does Walmart’s test using autonomous vehicles sans a safety driver mark a significant milestone for the technology at retail?

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) will acquire Quiet Logistics in a $350 million cash deal, another step in a strategy to gain greater control over its supply chain. What roles do you see the acquisitions of AirTerra and Quiet Logistics playing in AEO’s supply chain strategy?

Kroger may not have found the treasure of the Sierra Madre, but the grocery giant appears to have struck grocery retailing gold with its use of automated warehouses, spoke hubs and micro-fulfillment centers to move into markets without having to open stores. What is your takeaway from Kroger’s rollout of the Ocado system in Florida and elsewhere?

The success of functions including sales, operations, procurement and shipping depends on retailers’ ability to apply analytics at scale towards developing better insights and responses to consumer demands. What do you think was the top supply chain innovation of 2021?

A number of grocery stores and tech vendors have piloted delivery robots over the last few years. Now one company is looking at the convenience store space as the sweet spot. How useful do you see robots, either remote controlled or autonomous, being for convenience stores now or in the near future?

Walmart and Ford announced yesterday that the two companies are working together to launch an autonomous vehicle delivery service in Austin, TX, Miami and Washington, D.C. Are artificial intelligence systems learning at a fast enough pace to convince you that autonomous deliveries will be viable within the next decade?

If some big names in the robotics world have their way, the robots we see working at retail may some day more closely resemble a human shelf-stocker, or even a Terminator. Do you see tasks like delivery, cleaning, etc. being handled in the medium- or long-term by humanoid robots rather than wheeled ones or delivery drones?

Schnuck Markets is going to the robots. The family-owned grocery chain announced that it is rolling out artificial intelligence-powered robots to all 111 of its stores in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Wisconsin.  What is your reaction to Schnuck Markets decision to deploy its inventory-taking robots chainwide?

Instacart has announced plans to partner with grocers to build micro-fulfillment centers within dedicated warehouses and existing retailer locations. Doing so is expected to speed up delivery and reduce the costs. Should grocers welcome or be wary of Instacart’s warehouse facilities?

Walmart announced that it is adding robots to its regional distributions centers that sort, store, retrieve and pack freight onto pallets. What do you think Joe Metzger means when he calls the robotics being deployed at Walmart’s regional distribution centers “a game changer” for the retailer?

Forty-nine percent of supply chain leaders have accelerated spending in digital technologies to make their operations more responsive and forward-looking during the pandemic, according to a new report.  Which emerging digital technologies cited in the article will be most beneficial in managing future disruption across the supply chain?

Kroger thinks that drone deliveries have the potential to help transform its e-commerce operations, announcing yesterday a pilot program testing the use of autonomous drones to deliver online orders from a Kroger in Centerville, OH. Why do so many retailers seem intrigued about the use of drone technology to make deliveries?

Walmart is removing its automated in-store pickup towers from some of its locations and turning them off in others as it focuses on fulfilling orders at the curbside. What is driving automated technology tests at retail and how can retailers better prioritize their investments?

Forget about underselling and overperforming. Kroger is going all in with the launch of its first automated fulfillment center (AKA shed) as part of its deal with Ocado, the British grocery e-commerce leader. Do you expect the Kroger/Ocado partnership to transform e-grocery in the U.S.?

Of the numerous types of robots that are catching on for use in the front of the store, robotic shelf scanners are the ones that retailers see being most effective, according to a new RetailWire Research study.  Where do you see retailers most likely to put robots to work in stores and other facilities?

Grocery stores that manage their back-end operations with busy hives of robots have gone from speculative fiction to reality. One recent entry into the space has made headlines with its plans to build up instead of out. Do you see a vertically-oriented, automated grocer like Urbx being able to make good when it comes to fast picking, packing and delivery?

Many believe that Clayton M. Christensen’s theory of “disruptive innovation” is one of, if not the most, important business ideas of the current century.  Where do you think disruptive innovation will take the retailing industry?

Automated grocery delivery is a retail technology that suddenly found itself with a more robust use case as the novel coronavirus pandemic made customers prioritize contact-free transactions in the interest of staying healthy.  Is the timing right for contactless delivery using robots and/or driverless vehicles to catch on?

PVH Corp., the parent of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, is more highly prioritizing real-time inventory visibility to better adjust to potential disruptions coming out of the pandemic. How important will visibility be in helping reduce supply chain disruptions in the future?

Walmart knows that its stores work. The chain is continually searching for ways to keep prices down and grow its market share. That’s where local fulfillment centers come in. Do you see Walmart’s ability to scale local fulfillment centers as a competitive game changer for the U.S. grocery market?

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Monday issued guidelines that will soon require remote identification for any drone that has to be registered with the FAA in what could expand the use of the machines for commercial deliveries. What safety protocols would you like to see before drones start delivering packages in your neighborhood?