by ellen milligan and jeremy kahn grocers alarmed at amazoncom incs rapid growth in europe are considering fighting back with the help of a tiny portuguese startup sensei a 16monthold technology company based in lisbon thats backed by germanys metro ag and portugals sonae sgps sa is pitching its technology to european supermarkets as they race the ecommerce giant to open the regions first checkoutless storessensei says three major european grocers including a uk supermarket operator have tapped its technology for stores they plan to open this year potentially getting in ahead of amazon the us behemoth has reportedly scouted space for its amazon go stores in london but has not announced any openings advt amazon operates 10 go stores in seattle chicago and san francisco and plans to open as many as 3000 more by 2021 people familiar with the situation have said it also owns whole foods market which has seven stores in london as consumers shop more online and amazon pushes into food sensei sees an openingamazon go is the best thing that happened to us vasco portugal senseis cofounder and chief executive officer said in an interview it would have been much more difficult for us if they didnt exist because this is an emerging technology and they are putting pressure on the market to move in this wayamazon all set to take on apple airpods with its firstever alexa wearableamazon expands its logistics space in hyderabadamazon vendor cloudtail looks to exit food spaceflipkart amazon oyo top workplaces in india report automatic paymentthe startup uses overhead cameras and artificial intelligence software to detect whats picked off shelves and calculate the bill it can also determine whether products are put down again anywhere in the store so that shoppers arent charged customers check in with a payment card or mobilephone code when they arrive and the store automatically takes payment when they leaveamazon has not detailed the technology in its go stores but analysts who have inspected them say it relies on a variety of sensors including socalled smart shelves that can determine when an item is removed as well as cameras that can read patterns printed on package labels payment is made via a mobile app the company declined to comment on european plans for checkoutfree stores advt senseis technology may be cheaper to deploy its easier to retrofit existing stores with aidriven cameraonly approaches than with multisensor systems said george lawrie a principal analyst with research firm forrestercheckoutless systems still face hurdles both amazon and senseis systems work only with packaged items yet grocers are coming under growing pressure from environmental groups and politicians to cut back on plastics sensei says grocers could solve the problem with a small number of employees in the freshfood aisles scanning loose producesenseis technology also requires retailers to provide examples of every item they sell which they then photograph from multiple angles to train the computervision algorithms that underpin its softwareother startupswhile other startups including san franciscobased standard