by lisa du and ayaka makiits watching and knows a crime is about to take place before it happensvaak a japanese startup has developed artificial intelligence software that hunts for potential shoplifters using footage from security cameras for fidgeting restlessness and other potentially suspicious body languagewhile ai is usually envisioned as a smart personal assistant or selfdriving car it turns out the technology is pretty good at spotting nefarious behavior like a scene out of the movie minority report algorithms analyze securitycamera footage and alert staff about potential thieves via a smartphone app the goal is prevention if the target is approached and asked if they need help theres a good chance the theft never happens advt vaak made headlines last year when it helped to nab a shoplifter at a convenience store in yokohama vaak had set up its software in the shop as a test case which picked up on previously undetected shoplifting activity the perpetrator was arrested a few days lateri thought then ah at last said vaak founder ryo tanaka 30 we took an important step closer to a society where crime can be prevented with aishoplifting cost the global retail industry about 34 billion in lost sales in 2017 the biggest source of shrinkage according to a report from tyco retail solutions while that amounts to approximately 2 percent of revenue it can make a huge difference in an industry known for razorthin marginsthe opportunity is huge retailers are projected to invest 200 billion in new technology this year according to gartner inc as they become more open to embracing technology to meet consumer needs as well as improve bottom linesif we go into many retailers whether in the us or uk there are very often going to be cctv cameras or some form of cameras within the store operation said thomas oconnor a retail analyst at gartner thats being leveraged by linking it to an analytics tool which can then do the actual analysis in a more efficient and effective waybecause it involves security retailers have asked aisoftware suppliers such as vaak and londonbased third eye not to disclose their use of the antishoplifting systems its safe to assume however that several bigname store chains in japan have deployed the technology in some form or another vaak has met with or been approached by the biggest publicly traded conveniencestore and drugstore chains in japan according to tanaka advt big retailers have already been adopting ai technology to help them do business apart from inventory management delivery optimisation and other enterprise needs ai algorithms run customersupport chatbots on websites image and video analysis is also being deployed such as amazoncom incs echo look which gives users fashion advicewere still just discovering all the market potential tanaka said we want to keep expanding the scope of the companyfounded in 2017 vaak is currently testing in a few dozen stores in the tokyo area the company began selling a marketready version of its shopliftingdetection software this