Lowe’s teams with NVIDIA and Magic Leap to reimagine store operations

Lowe’s is tapping NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise to create interactive store digital twins in Mill Creek, Wash,. and Charlotte, N.C.

“We are always looking for ways to reimagine store operations and remove friction for our customers,” says Seemantini Godbole, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Information Officer at Lowe’s.

“With NVIDIA Omniverse, we’re pulling data together in ways that have never been possible, giving our associates superpowers.”

Lowe’s is exploring a variety of augmented reality use cases, including reconfiguring layouts, restocking support, real-time collaboration and what it calls “X-ray vision.”

Wearing a Magic Leap 2 AR headset, store associates can interact with the digital twin. This helps an associate compare what a store shelf should look like with what it actually looks like, and ensure it’s stocked with the right products in the right configurations.

Those on the ground can also communicate and collaborate with centralised store planners via AR.

For example, if a store associate notices an improvement that could be made to a proposed planogram for their store, they can flag it on the digital twin with an AR “sticky note.” Lastly, a benefit of the digital twin and Magic Leap 2 headset is the ability to explore “X-ray vision.”

Traditionally, a store associate might need to climb a ladder to scan or read small labels on cardboard boxes held in a store’s top stock.

With an AR headset and the digital twin, the associate could look up at a partially obscured cardboard box from ground level, and, thanks to computer vision and Lowe’s inventory application programming interfaces, “see” what’s inside via an AR overlay.