Omnichannel has changed the way we shop forever, a reality that was cemented this year as millions of consumers turned to online shopping to avoid exposure to the COVID-19 virus.

Put on your consumer hat and assess your habits. Do you buy both hard to find items and basic staples like batteries and toothbrushes online? When you go to a retail store, if they do not have the item you are looking for, do you leave and then look online or even look online while standing in the store? Will you place multiple online orders during a given day? Do you expect any goods ordered to arrive in two days (or less)? When you go to a retail store, are you sometimes surprised to find there is still value in seeing and touching the item before buying it? Have you tried the order online and pickup in store model (particularly in the hopes of having it ‘now’)?

Berkshire Grey, a US-based technology company, builds solutions that combine Artificial Intelligence and Robotics to automate retail, eCommerce, and logistics processes.

Despite the availability of innovative machinery and workforce, only 30 percent of warehouses in the U.S are operating efficiently, says a study by the Georgia Institute of Technology. This statistic poses a scarier follow-on question: what about the rest? Many warehouses are filled with people executing one of the most labor-intensive tasks in order fulfilment: picking.

Inside a low-slung, cream-colored office building near Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, a stealthy startup company has been working for seven years to design the most efficient warehouse in the world.