THINK ACT BEYOND MAINSTREAM Robots and retail What does the future hold for people and robots in the stores of tomorrow? 2 THINK ACT Robots and retail 3 THE BIG 10 billion euros marks the size of the android robot market in 2025 page 4 -26% is the annual reduction in the cost of manufacturing robots able to interact with humans page 4 30 times more interactions per day between humans and robots than between humans and digital terminals page 15 THINK ACT 3 Robots and retail From a transactional role to an image role: rethinking store models with robots. Increasing commercial wasteland in the USA is testa- ment to the challenges now facing traditional retail outlets. Deserted stores are telling warning signs that have served as a wake-up call for retailers, who must react quickly to the evolving retail landscape. While some retailers have managed to maintain revenues by opening more sales outlets, they need to rethink the economic balance of investment in sales outlets and customer ?ows. In an environment where digital sales are set to double over the next 10 years, reaching an average of 20% to 25%, stores can no longer restrict themselves to solely a transactional role, which itself is increasingly being ful?lled by e-commerce. They are going to have to boost their role as purveyors of an image, implying a radically di?erent economic model. Robots can also free people of the need to perform dangerous and arduous tasks, or take charge of cer- tain simple – and even complicated – repetitive ac- tivities, performing them better than humans. Is it conceivable that the stores of the future will no longer feature human sta Researchers from Oxford estimate that 92% of sales sta? could be replaced by machines by 2023. This ?gure may appear far-fetched, especially at a time when customers are increasingly demanding as regards service and remain strongly attached to per- sonal contact with a sales assistan