Retail in Asia

In Trends

Pepper the robot to offer tailored services in Japanese retail shops

Pepper the humanoid robot will start offering tailored customer services in retail shops by using online data analysis.

SoftBank Robotics Corp., which developed Pepper, will start selling the next-generation services this fall with Microsoft Japan Co. as part of their collaboration in cloud robotics, the companies said Tuesday. They did not announce the price.

Connected to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform, Pepper will cater to the needs of individual customers and recommend products based on analysis of data online, such as customer behaviour and sales.