The military-industrial-complex hits our supermarkets.

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PALANTIR TECH IN COLES

Last year, Coles entered a controversial three-year partnership with Palantir Technologies to deploy the company’s Foundry and Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) systems across over 840 supermarkets in Australia.

The partnership aims to “enhance operational efficiency, optimize workforce management, and leverage data analytics to streamline Coles’ operations”.

This includes incorporation for over 120,000 employees and 9,000 suppliers, projected to be responsible for approximately $41 billion in annual revenue.

At the core of these systems is advanced mass surveillance and data collection.

Under the deal, Coles uses Palantir’s software to “integrate and analyse large amounts of operational data”, such as workforce data (store, team member, shift, allocations).

One key focus will be linking the high-level management “C-Suite” to front-line store operations via AIP, enabling “real-time decisions on workforce planning, shift efficiency, and cost optimisation”, according to the company.

Palantir’s Foundry platform processes around 10 billion rows of data to “provide insights into Coles’ supply chain, inventory, and employee engagement”. Reports indicate this partnership has already reduced team churn by 25% and improved team engagement.

Coles says the systems aren’t explicitly being used for customer surveillance, but Palantir’s own published documentation indicates their software can be used for “customer analytics” and “automated segmentation of customers”

This is achieved by “integrating digital and in-store sources”.

The deal has raised concerns among privacy advocates about increased surveillance of employees and customers, and potential over-reliance on data-driven decision-making.

They are also raising alarms over the implications of Coles depending on a U.S.-based tech company with a history of controversial contracts with agencies like the CIA.

Critics argue that such technologies, including Palantir’s tools, prioritise profit and efficiency over worker welfare and customer privacy.

The deal is aligned with Coles’ “Simplify & Save to Invest” program, which aims for significant cost-savings, by leveraging advanced analytics and AI moving forward.

The long arm of the military-industrial-complex has found its way to our own supermarkets, as Coles leads the charge in a transformation fit to suit their agendas.

Day by day, our biggest chains are becoming more robotic and surveilled, with a vision to turn them into a dystopian nightmare by the end of the decade.

NWO SUPERMARKETS

Coles’ partnership with Palantir is part of a broader trend toward high-tech infrastructure in supermarkets, which includes customer tracking, self-checkout security measures, and gig economy integration for deliveries.

Both Coles and Woolworths, which together control about two-thirds of Australia’s grocery market, face scrutiny for their market dominance, pricing practices, and increasing use of surveillance and data analytics technologies.

Commentators have highlighted that supermarkets are increasingly employing “surveillance” technologies, such as cameras, checkout tracking, self-checkout behaviour, loss-prevention systems, and more.

The supermarket is along for the ride towards 2030 themselves, introducing things like ‘smart gates’ to lock customers in the store and ‘hybrid self-checkouts’ in recent years.

Coles renews push for ‘hybrid’ self-serve checkouts
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Coles introduces new Smart Gates at self-checkouts
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The involvement of a surveillance/analytics firm like Palantir raises concerns about creep beyond workforce into broader consumer tracking.

Artificial intelligence will eventually phase out the need for checkouts all together in these stores, as supermarkets switch to biometric identification measures like the ones seen in Amazon Go stores across the U.S.

Supermarkets to be ‘Checkout Free’ by 2030
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Coles are not alone in their efforts, either.

Although there is no evidence to suggest Woolworths has an agreement with Palantir, they are still pushing hard for their own surveillance mechanisms.

Let’s not forget they recently expanded the use of a new self-serve checkout features to hundreds of new locations across the country, using camera surveillance and AI scanners to detect when items are not put through self-checkouts correctly.

Woolworths surveillance creep continues across the country
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Earlier this year, after a “successful” trial of Scan&Go smart trolleys in NSW, they announced an expansion to VIC and QLD with their ‘convenient’ new technology.

Woolworths expands ‘smart trolley’ trial to additional states
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They are also on the cashless society bandwagon, with the organisation trialling cashless payment systems at 11 CBD stores across three regions in 2020 – announcing these locations would not be accepting cash payments from customers.

Woolworths trialling ban on cash payments
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But Coles entering into an agreement with Palantir takes things to an entirely different level, and takes the cake for the biggest red flag to emerge in supermarket news.

There has never been a better time to shop local and support your growing/farming community, stepping away from and rejecting the big NWO supermarket chains.

In the future, they will be cashless and staff-less dystopian blocks, using facial recognition and Digital ID to process goods – all fake, lab-grown foods.

That is not a future I want to partake in, and I hope all readers feel the same.

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