The failure of full self-service

Amazon has quietly started closing more of its Amazon Go physical stores. The idea was revolutionary: just walk in, grab what you need, and walk out—no checkout lines, no friction, all powered by sensors and AI. Per many studies, if you remove friction you increase consumption. But this didn’t work out.

I visited one a while back. The tech was great. But the place felt like I was shopping from inside a vending machine. No buzz, no people, no accidental “excuse me” as you reach for the same item as someone else, I don’t know why - but it was just an eerily cold experience. It really did feel like shopping in a vending machine.

As a sidenote, you should check out my complete newsletter (and subscribe). 

Amazon set out to eliminate the worst part of the store: waiting in line to pay (it really is the worst part). But in doing so, they also removed the best part: people. We don’t enjoy lines but we understand that we need to pay. And every now and then, in that line, someone smiles. Someone makes a comment about the weather. Someone helps you bag your groceries. Small things, but they stick.

Do we need lines for that? No, no, please do not conclude that from this article. But someone smiling, someone commenting on the weather, someone helping us bag the groceries. That actually makes it part of life, the part that’s hardest to scale: human connection.

Many hoteliers get this. But they’re going to the other extreme. Trying to keep all the bathwater, forever. There’s a middle ground where speed and efficiency is critical backed by just the right amount of human connection. ID-checks, Payments and transactions are not the right place to try to build human connection.

A century ago in New York Automats were a solution to have fewer waiters because they were seen as a necessary evil (did you know that at the time American’s considered tipping to be a European thing and wanted to do away with it?). In the end humans survived and Automats less so.

AI and automation layers can take care of the boring, repetitive stuff: stock checks, payment processing, receipt emailing. But let’s reserve the front-of-house for the human connection.

We’ve spent a century trying to replace humans with machines, (and I tend to agree some humans are really annoying). But I think we need to analyse the work that has no real value, in fact in many cases it has negative emotional value, and automate those.

Today many front desk experiences are similar to Customs & Border Control. Reality is with the tech available now we don’t even need the front desk in it’s current form. This could just be people taking your luggage and showing you to your room while checking you in on the fly.

There are so many opportunities. Removing people shouldn’t be one of them. Removing the negative value tasks of people should come first.