Loyola Uni New Orleans store opens as AWS adds 19 JWO locations across 12 campuses in 2025

A new Amazon Just Walk Out technology powered store has gone live at Loyola University New Orleans in the US.

In a LinkedIn post, Madison DeFranco, Senior Technical Business Development, Just Walk Out Technology at Amazon Web Services, said: “2025 was a milestone year for AWS Just Walk Out technology, and I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished in higher education.”

She added: “Just a little over three years ago, we launched our first collegiate store at Texas A&M University. Today, we're opening our 71st store at Loyola University New Orleans. This year alone, we added 19 new stores across 12 campuses, bringing our total to 49 campuses nationwide where students, staff, and fans experience frictionless shopping powered by Amazon Just Walk Out technology.”

“None of this would be possible without our amazing customers, partners, and colleagues who've worked tirelessly to make this growth a reality. Their dedication has truly transformed the campus retail experience. Looking ahead to 2026, I'm excited about the momentum we're building. Buckle up - it's going to be a great year!”

Act your age

In September, our sister title RTIH reported that Amazon was binning its ambitious Just Walk Out technology powered Amazon Fresh experiment in the UK, just four years after the US online giant launched its first grocery store in London.

It is shuttering its 19 Fresh stores, with plans to convert five of these into Whole Foods Market locations. The first one opened in the UK during 2021 in Ealing, west London.

Many industry observers have been arguing that Just Walk Out is dead. Not true, according to Michael Guzzetta, Retail Innovation & Strategy Leader at Cookie Plug San Antonio, and a former H-E-B executive.

In a LinkedIn post, he said: “It’s just finally acting its age. The newest wave of Amazon retrofits (tiny ceiling cameras, lighter sensors, cheap edge compute) shows a shift from moonshot autonomy to practical autonomy. And honestly, retail’s been waiting for this moment.”

He added: “The first version of JWO was beautiful… but only in the “concept car” sense. Great to look at, impossible to scale across stores with inconsistent lighting, tight ceilings, and a facilities team already stretched thin. Cool, but impractical.”

The new flavour is different, he believes. It’s cheaper. It’s modular. It fits into real stores instead of forcing stores to become labs. And this isn’t just Amazon. You can see it across the field.

AiFi, for instance, uses small ceiling cameras with tiny edge models that don’t need a server room. Install time is measured in hours, not weeks. Trigo, meanwhile, is powering full size autonomous grocery for Rewe and others. Its entire pitch is “retrofit reality,” and it actually works with messy, lived in store conditions.

Zippin runs concession stands in stadiums and airports with compact overhead units that can flip transactions in seconds. And AWM uses event driven video processing (ABI) that only computes when a person or cart is in frame, dramatically cutting cost and infrastructure.

Guzzetta commented: “The pattern is obvious: Nobody is chasing perfect anymore. They’re chasing manageable. That’s the shift retailers needed. Because stores never needed level 5 autonomy. They needed level 2.5… the kind that speeds up the line, lowers the error rate, and makes the associate’s life easier instead of adding another fragile system to babysit.”

“Through the Retail Innovation Triangle lens: Operator Impact: faster lines, fewer mis-scans, less friction; Technical Shift: tiny, cheap computer vision models beating early JWO’s heavy stacks; Pilot Path: start with a two-aisle zone or kiosk, run 90 days, watch your throughput lift.”

He concluded: “Checkout-free retail isn’t dying. It’s finally getting practical. This shift is only going one direction… toward simpler, cheaper, and smarter autonomy.”