Robots are slowly changing the part of the shopping experience we as consumers don’t ever see. I’m talking about in the storage warehouses, the order picking, and eventually even transportation. There’s no better example of this than Amazon’s acquisition of robotics maker Kiva. Walmart is also embracing robots behind the scenes, but they’re also set to become shopping companions.

We’ve all walked around stores like Walmart, and the one thing you’ll typically be pushing while doing so is a shopping cart (with at least one wheel that doesn’t work properly). It’s this part of the experience Walmart is set to change, by replacing the humble shopping cart with a robot.

Walmart is collaborating with Five Elements Robotics to create a shopping cart robot. Neither company is talking much about the collaboration, but it’s easy to make some conclusions with confidence based on what Five Elements Robotics has done before.

The company’s main focus is on Budgee–a personal robot that follows its owner around and has a large storage area for your shopping, or just to carry items from place-to-place. That same tech can be integrated into shopping carts, meaning rather than pushing them around they’ll instead follow you, leaving your hands free to browse the shelves.

It’s also thought the robotic carts will help customers shop. Simply let the cart see your shopping list and it can help locate everything listed. I assume this will end up being an app interface (just like the Budgee robot already has) where you can type or say what product you want. The robo-cart will respond by navigating to the correct aisle, saving the customer both time and the effort of finding an employee to help them.

There’s no known timetable for when these robotic carts will end up in stores, but with the collaboration already underway, it can’t be too far off.

Image credit: Paul L Dineen on Flickr.