A tablet with artificial intelligence mounted directly in the shopping cart is already available in two branches of Milam's Market, an independent family-owned chain in South Florida, as part of a tech pilot project that promises to transform the in-store experience.
The system is called Cooper and was developed by the startup Coupr, founded in 2024 by Julian Janna, a 31-year-old Colombian based in New York.
According to the report from Local10, the device serves as a personal assistant throughout the visit to the store.
The operation is simple: the customer takes a cart equipped with a tablet and can upload their shopping list to display on the screen, check a real-time map of their location within the store—similar to Google Maps—and ask the system questions about specific products.
Cooper also allows users to compare items by price, nutritional content, protein, sugar, or calories, and filter options based on special diets such as keto, vegan, or gluten-free.
The system responds to inquiries verbally in English and via text in Spanish, while voice support in other languages is still under development.
At the end of the purchase, the cashier scans the screen of the cart to register the selected items and improve future suggestions. The system also creates a personalized profile linked to the user's phone number and remembers their usual preferences.
The use is completely free for customers.
Janna explained the motivation behind the project with a relatable image: "I see it like when my mom gives my dad a shopping list and he says, 'I have no idea where any of this is.' That's exactly what we're trying to solve."
The pilot is currently operating at the Pinecrest and Coconut Grove locations, with 10 smart carts in each store and plans to expand to 20.
The preliminary results are striking: buyers who used Coupr carts recorded baskets that were 41% larger in terms of the number of items and 53% larger in dollar value compared to the historical baseline of the chain.
Unlike the smart shopping carts from Amazon or those from Instacart, which are mainly focused on self-checkout, Cooper aims to enhance and personalize the in-store shopping experience.
Chad Milam, the administrative director of Milam's Market, confirmed that the reception has been positive: "What we see in the data is that customers keep coming back to use it over and over again."
The official launch at the Coconut Grove branch is scheduled for August.
Milam's Market, a family-owned chain founded in 1984, has locations in Sunny Isles Beach, Miami Springs, Pinecrest, Coconut Grove, and two in Coral Gables.
Janna hopes that her invention will be adopted in the future by large chains like Publix and Winn-Dixie.
Milam's is not the first supermarket in South Florida to invest in technology.
Sedano's opened in 2019 the world's first automated supermarket in Florida, featuring a robotic system capable of preparing orders in five minutes, and Costco tested this year a new express payment system that reduces checkout time to less than 10 seconds.
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