Breakup in Aisle Three: Retail Tech Goes the Distance

Pathr is a startup that leverages machine learning (ML) and data analytics to gain knowledge of how consumers move through environments. Pre-crisis, it launched On the X, an AI-powered spatial intelligence platform that uses anonymous location data to gather real-time insights. It does this on a mobile platform that can guide staff to the optimal in-store location where they are most likely to close a sale.

Pathr also recently launched a new product called SocialDistance.ai. SocialDistance.ai leverages Pathr’s spatial intelligence technology to generate information on how infectious diseases might spread in various scenarios. SocialDistance.ai was born when Pathr’s team was locked down in the San Francisco Bay Area and started brainstorming ways their technology could help smooth over friction caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

“There’s a spatial component to disease outbreak in general, and we’ve been hearing a lot about that with this coronavirus, so that was the spark, just thinking about what we could do to help,” noted Pathr Founder and CEO George Shaw in MIT News.