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Microsoft is reportedly taking on Amazon with checkout-free retail

Grab-and-go shopping is getting competitive.

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Katie Collins
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Amazon showed off checkout-free stores in January.

 Shara Tibken/CNET

Microsoft may be creating checkout-free retail technology to compete with Amazon Go.

The technology would eliminate both checkouts and cashiers from stores, according to a Reuters story published Wednesday. Instead it would track what shoppers are buying by seeing what they add to their carts.

Microsoft is reportedly shopping the tech to retailers around the world, and has discussed a collaboration with Walmart.

Amazon opened its futuristic Amazon Go store to the public in January and is set to open Amazon Go stores in San Francisco and Chicago soon. The technology allows retailers to cut out the pain points of shopping -- queuing and paying -- by allowing customers to grab and go, with the automated payment taking place in the ether.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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