Smartness as a New Paradigm for Retail? Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Autonomous Stores in the Media

Abstract

AS), they are typically described as AI-powered physical spaces that monitor customer interactions, automatically bill for items, and allow customers to simply pick up goods and leave without the traditional checkout (Phillips et al., 2022). Media often describe autonomous stores as the «store of the future» (NYT, 2018, news article) and the «future of shopping» (The Guardian, 2016, news article), demonstrating how technology can enhance everyday life (PT specialized media, 2023, news article). These stores are expected to disrupt retail and consumption, conflating imaginaries of technological progress in the service of consumer convenience and automation. This chapter aims to probe the «sociotechnical imaginaries» (Jasanoff & Kim, 2009; Jasanoff, 2015) of autonomous stores that circulate in news media. Defined by Jasanoff as «collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures, animated by shared understandings of forms of social life and social order attainable through, and supportive of, advances in science and technology» (2015: 4), sociotechnical imaginaries highlight the performative role of discourse and imagination in bringing entities and worlds into existence. We examine how autonomous stores are defined, the purported needs that drive them, the users they conjure, and their broader implications. Our analysis is based on 137 media articles written about AS published across selected legacy and specialized outlets between 2016 and 2023 in Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which were thematically analysed using MaxQDA software (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The chapter stems from an ongoing research project funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Autonomous Stores: Sociotechnical Infrastructures, Imaginaries and Data Governance, that seeks to examine how autonomous stores are materially and discursively constituted, maintained, and used.