- Telexistence and Seven-Eleven Japan will co-develop “Astra,” a generative-AI, Vision-Language-Action humanoid robot for convenience stores, with deployments targeted for 2029.
- The collaboration will identify automatable store tasks, design humanoid hardware for real-world retail conditions, and build large-scale motion datasets to train and deploy VLA models.
- TX will leverage data from its Ghost restocking robots and work with AIRoA (including Waseda’s Ogata, UTokyo’s Matsuo, and Toyota) to accelerate dataset creation and implementation, aiming to ease labor shortages and elevate in-store customer experience.
PRESS RELEASE -Telexistence Inc. (TX) and Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. (SEJ) have entered into a partnership to jointly develop, validate, and introduce humanoid robots powered by generative AI. The initiative will advance the creation of “Astra,” a humanoid robot equipped with Vision-Language-Action (VLA) foundation model, with deployment in Seven-Eleven stores targeted for 2029.
“Shaping the Future of Retail”
By implementing Astra in real store environments, TX and SEJ aim to provide solutions to rising labor costs and workforce shortages, while redefining the customer experience. Robots will take on routine in-store operations, allowing employees to focus on services that only humans can deliver—strengthening store appeal and creating new value for customers.
Background and scope of the Partnership
As labor shortages and operational challenges intensify across the retail sector, Seven-Eleven has continued to invest in automation and labor-saving technologies. This partnership builds upon those efforts, aiming not only to improve efficiency but also to transform the very role of employees in convenience stores.
The partnership focuses on three major initiatives:
- Identifying retail operations suitable for automation and verifying their effectiveness.
- Developing humanoid hardware tailored to real-world store challenges.
- Collecting and building large-scale robot operation datasets to advance VLA training and deployment.
In collaboration with the AI Robot Association (AIRoA)—whose leadership includes Professor Tetsuya Ogata (Waseda University), Professor Yutaka Matsuo (University of Tokyo), Toyota Motor Corporation, and TX—the partnership will accelerate dataset development and practical implementation of AI-powered robots.
“Leveraging Large-Scale Real-World Motion Data”
TX already operates a large-scale data collection platform through its beverage restocking robot, Ghost. By integrating TX’s data collection platform with SEJ’s vast store operation of more than 20,000 stores, the partnership will create unparalleled training resources for VLA models. This will enable end-to-end integration of perception, planning, and control—bringing humanoid robots into practical use faster and at greater scale than any competitor.
