Baidu AI Retail Experience Store

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise worldwide, with Chinese high-tech companies playing a significant role in this development. Baidu Online Network Technology in Beijing has used AI experience to develop a store where customers can shop without the need for help by any shop staff. Instead of people, integrated cameras equipped with face recognition monitor the entire shopping process, check the identity of buyers and register all those goods for billing purposes that customers select and take home. The brand name Baidu AIR (Baidu Artificial Intelligence Retail) has been chosen deliberately for its association with air and lightness. It embodies the carefree shopping experience under the keywords of “pleasure” and “intelligence”, in addition to AIR being an acronym of AI retail. The well-thought-out concept of the brand continues in the design of the logo. Consisting of six diamond-shaped matrices, it displays the shape of an abstract “A” and conveys three essential aspects for the company. First, the geometric patterns of dots and lines thus represent the value of AI, including higher feasibility and improved predictability for retailers. Second, the exacting arrangement (array) reflects the processes optimised by AI, such as the win-win situation for retailers and customers. And third, “AIR” can also be understood as “emptiness” achieved through focusing or as a state relieved of interference from the outside. The Baidu AI Retail Experience Store does without anything superfluous to keep the focus firmly on the shopping experience. The colour scheme of the logo epitomises this concentration though its reduction to black and white or black and silver, promoting an appearance of distinctive elegance and class.