Sainsbury’s and Facewatch Expand Trial for AI-powered Facial Recognition in Stores

Sainsbury’s is expanding its AI-powered facial recognition trial to more than 150 stores, aiming to strengthen retail security and create a safer shopping environment for customers and colleagues.

Sainsbury’s, a supermarket retailer in the UK, is expanding its AI-powered facial recognition partnership with Facewatch across 200 supermarkets before Christmas, following trial results that aim to improve in-store safety, reduce repeat retail crime, and create a better shopping experience for customers and colleagues.

The retailer has already deployed the technology in more than 55 stores and plans to extend it to around 150 additional locations. The Facewatch platform alerts trained store colleagues when an individual previously linked to theft, violence, or aggressive behaviour enters a participating store, allowing teams to respond more quickly while maintaining staff oversight of every alert.

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According to Sainsbury’s, the trial reduced incidents of theft, aggression, harm and antisocial behaviour by 46%, while 92% of identified repeat offenders did not return to participating stores. The retailer said the system delivers a 99.98% accuracy rate, immediately deletes images of individuals who are not matched, and is not used to monitor ordinary customers or employees.

The wider rollout reflects increasing investment by retailers in AI-powered security technologies to improve team member safety, reduce retail crime and create more secure shopping environments. At the same time, retailers continue to balance these operational benefits with governance, transparency and customer trust as facial recognition technology becomes more widely deployed across stores.

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