Humanoid robots take the night shift in grocery retail

Associated Press footage published on 11 October 2026 shows humanoid robots from the startup HIVE Robots restocking shelves in føtex stores in Denmark, where they have trained after closing time since June.

The pilot follows a multi-year co-innovation partnership announced in March 2026. The robots are 182 cm tall and combine onboard AI with remote human operators who step in when the model gets confused.

HIVE does not sell the robots. It offers shelf replenishment as a service, charged by the hour.

The interesting part is not whether a robot can lift a box. It's the business model. An hourly rate for a robot turns automation from a capital investment into an operating cost — and makes it directly comparable with a staffing contract.

Night shifts in Nordic retail are expensive and hard to staff. That is exactly where new technology tends to enter first: the job nobody is queuing for.

Don't start with the robot. Start with the data: shelf, stock and planogram data good enough for a machine to act on. The same data makes every other form of retail AI better too.

Bring the unions and store staff in early. Automation that is introduced to people instead of with them tends to stall at the pilot stage.

As Chief Digital Officer at Coop I saw how retail transformation is won in the stores, not in the strategy deck. Scan & Pay worked because it fitted how people actually shop and how stores actually run.

Retail AI is one of the themes I cover as an AI keynote speaker, and the kind of decision I help leadership teams with in AI advisory.