Walmart considering robotic shopping carts that follow you around and tell you what to buy

Websites have suggestions, Walmart has robotic personal shoppers doubling as shopping carts — or at least it wants to.

The company is reportedly collaborating with Five Elements Robotics to help consumers ease the burden of pushing around a shopping cart, all while offering up suggestions to shoppers. The report came from last week’s Bloomberg Technology Conference, and follows another that Walmart was looking at ride-hailing services to offer at-home delivery to customers.

Walmart’s technological ambitions are becoming clear, and both moves could offer up a bit of insight into how it plans to compete with online stores that have taken a bite out of store revenue for the better part of a decade.

Hopefully, Walmart can keep these robots from escaping.