“Hire Stella for $3 a day,” the message in my inbox said. “The first robotic retail worker.” I was of course intrigued, and turned to Stella’s website to find out more. My first discovery is that Stellabots did not invent the name – Stella AI is apparently a broad term used to refer to various AI platforms, especially in customer service and marketing. One theory about the origin of this usage is that since the name Stella means star, it carries with it the implication of clarity. 

But back to retail’s own Stella. As science fiction author William Gibson famously said, “The future is here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.” In this case, Stella the robotic retail worker is only being rolled out in certain limited markets – currently just the greater Los Angeles area. General availability is targeted at the second quarter of 2026.

What can Stella do? This short video of a conversation between a customer and Stella in a beauty products store shows how adept the robot can be at using AI to answer a customer question. Of course it can only give out the information it has been given access to as far as product details, location, price and features. When they say the robot is “trainable like a human,” the company is acknowledging that a lot of effort goes into making a robot (or real salesperson) truly effective. The amount of programming a retail robot will need mostly likely precludes it from being an option for a smaller store, at least initially.

One of the fun features of the Stella robot is that it can show reviews and targeted promos on the screen located below the head of the “lifelike avatar.” She can also be trained to upsell, and to reassure hesitant buyers about the value of their purchase. Unlike human sales people, Stella automatically compiles a daily ROI and trends reports.   

She works all day on one battery charge for “less than a latte” in rental cost, the website points out. That price, however, is a limited time offer, and doesn’t include Stella moving around the store. The deluxe edition, which is not available yet, is a humanoid version with dexterous hands who also stocks shelves – but the price per hour at that level is actually not that much less than the price of a latte.

It turns out that Stella is not the first robot in the retail world. Simbe Robotic’s Tally, who is now a decade old, was created to scan store shelves to conduct inventory. At 15,000 to 30,000 products per hour, Tally is certainly speedier than even our fastest employee. But does he dust while he counts?

Happy Retailing,
Carol “Orange” Schroeder