How Shelf Intelligence Is Evolving, with Simbe CEO Brad Bogolea | FMI 2026
In this Omni Talk Retail interview, recorded live from FMI 2026 at the Simbe booth, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga speak with Brad Bogolea, Co-founder and CEO of Simbe, about how shelf intelligence is reshaping store execution and why real-time visibility inside the store is becoming essential for retailers.
Brad shares the thinking behind Simbe’s newly announced Tally 4.0, the company’s fourth-generation autonomous inventory robot, and how advancements in battery life, edge compute, and optical sensing are unlocking more frequent store coverage and faster time to value. He explains how real-time shelf data is evolving into predictive intelligence that supports merchandising, replenishment, and forecasting decisions across the retail enterprise.
The conversation also explores why shelf intelligence is foundational in an increasingly agentic and AI-driven retail environment, how retailers across geographies are prioritizing physical store data, and what Simbe’s first decade has revealed about building long-term retailer partnerships and scaling innovation in grocery and beyond.
Key Topics Covered
- What’s new in Simbe’s Tally 4.0 platform
- Why shelf intelligence is gaining urgency across retail
- Real-time visibility versus predictive intelligence
- How edge AI and advanced sensing improve store execution
- The role of shelf data in merchandising and replenishment
- Lessons from Simbe’s first 10 years in retail automation
- What the next decade of store intelligence could look like
Stay tuned to Omni Talk Retail for continued coverage from FMI 2026, recorded live from the Simbe booth, #118, in the FMI Tech section.
#FMI2026 #Simbe #ShelfIntelligence #RetailAutomation #StoreExecution #RetailTechnology #AIinRetail #GroceryRetail #OmniTalk
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
Hello, everyone.
Speaker B:This is Omnitalk Retail.
Speaker B:I'm Chris Walton.
Speaker C:And I'm Anne Mazinga.
Speaker B:And we are coming to you live from the Simbi booth in San Diego at FMI Midwinter.
Speaker B:And we are at booth 118 for those who want to come on by and say hello.
Speaker B:And it is in the FMI tech section now.
Speaker B:Standing between us today, Anne, is Brad Begolia.
Speaker B:Brad is the CEO of Simbee.
Speaker B:Brad, welcome back to Omnitalk and thanks for enabling us to come out here to this conference.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Chris and Anne, so great to see you guys.
Speaker A:Thrilled to host you.
Speaker C:Well, Brad, we're going to kick it right off.
Speaker C:Those who have been listening to this week's Fast 5 in conjunction with all of our interviews here at FMI heard about the latest tally 4.0 release in our Fast 5.
Speaker C:I want to hear your side of it.
Speaker C:I can't remember who the source was that we actually took for the Fast 5, but I can't imagine that they could do a better job than you can right now.
Speaker C:Telling us all about it.
Speaker A:Well, excited to share more.
Speaker A:So to tally four is our fourth generation product.
Speaker A:So in 10 years, we built four different generations of tally.
Speaker A:This is the culmination of more than 10 years worth of R and D and really brings to market the latest in sensing technology, compute technology, and battery technology to help us unlock the most value for our retail partners.
Speaker A:So much like you're getting a new computer or a new car every few years, this is the latest and greatest.
Speaker C:That's fantastic.
Speaker C:And what are a few of the things about the new Tally that you think retailers are going to respond most immediately to?
Speaker C:What are some of the capabilities?
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:One of the biggest pieces is a much larger battery.
Speaker A:So it gives us actually 12 hours of runtime.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:And so this means we can cover stores much longer, more frequently.
Speaker A:And so really expanding coverage or the frequency of coverage within these environments, especially as we move into bigger boxes.
Speaker A:Other capabilities within this platform are new Nvidia compute platform.
Speaker A:So as you know, Nvidia is really leading the physical AI revolution.
Speaker B:I've heard them like $4 trillion company last time I checked.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So this leverages the latest Nvidia GPUs, which means we're able to do far more inferencing on the edge.
Speaker A:And that really means increasing our time to value around data that we give our customers.
Speaker A:So more real time processing.
Speaker A:And then the last big bucket is the latest camera system.
Speaker A:And so latest generation of optical sensing allows us to just certainly see Further and more detail, especially in more complex shelving and store scenarios.
Speaker B:And so what are some of those scenarios?
Speaker B:Like?
Speaker B:So like from my memory reading the announcement this past week, you're able to go into perishables and the freezers and everything like that too.
Speaker B:That's pretty big when you start talking about full coverage in grocery.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And to be clear, with our prior generation products, we were doing fresh and we were doing most of the store.
Speaker A:But with the latest sensing technology, you can really see these really hard to see areas.
Speaker A:So you guys know the size of barcodes, the size of price tags.
Speaker A:Within these physical stores you have variable depth shelving.
Speaker A:So this really helps us just unlock all the complexities and variety that you will see in these different environments with the latest gen tech.
Speaker B:Got it.
Speaker B:All right, so that's now.
Speaker B:So that's tally four.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Over 10 years, four tallies.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Where's it going next?
Speaker B:Like what are you hearing?
Speaker B:What else are you hearing?
Speaker B:Retailers still ask you about and I'm curious, are the ask different by geography?
Speaker B:Say like us versus Europe.
Speaker B:Like how would you answer that question, Brad?
Speaker A:I would say the ask that we're still seeing as a business is totally increasing interest in shelf intelligence.
Speaker A:I think as we move to this more agentic world, retailers are realizing they need far better data about what's happening in their physical stores.
Speaker A:So the shelf intelligence narrative continues to increase, I would say, regardless of location of retailer.
Speaker A:So we're in 10 countries today.
Speaker A:Our business is predominantly grocery, but we also work in hardware, home improvement, alcohol, a number of other segments.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:The themes are pretty common.
Speaker A:It's really about having true visibility and direct eyes into your stores and what's happening.
Speaker B:And so what does that shelf intelligence evolution mean?
Speaker B:Like what does that word mean for our audience?
Speaker A:Yeah, so with shelf intelligence out of the gate, I think people historically have started with things like out of stocks and pricing, promotional execution.
Speaker A:What they're seeing is this signal really touches every facet of their business.
Speaker A:So if they want to make intelligent merchandising decisions, you really need to understand what's happening on the shelf, not just point of sale data or shopper insight data.
Speaker A:If you want to improve your forecasting and replenishment, you need a tighter signal about what's happening on the store shelves.
Speaker C:Well, and let's talk about, you mentioned real time visibility versus predictive intelligence.
Speaker C:Break down kind of the nuance between the two of those for our audience so that they can kind of understand what the implications are.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:I would say chapter one for Simbee was really about giving retailers eyes in their stores.
Speaker A:And so what is actually happening right now, now we're moving to this world of more predictive intelligence.
Speaker A:So as you're fusing this real time data with all the other data that's available on the retail enterprise, you can make far greater predictive decisions about every facet of the business.
Speaker A:Whether that's a merchandising change, shuffling assortment for E Comm strategies.
Speaker A:There's a lot happening.
Speaker B:Yeah, we heard schnooks talk about that this morning actually.
Speaker B:All right, so like we said at the outset, 10 years just celebrated your 10 year tally, just celebrated its 10 year birthday.
Speaker B:We all celebrate on social media.
Speaker B:As you look back on that 10 years, Brad, what are you most proud of?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, gosh, you know, so much, you know, feel incredibly fortunate, first and foremost with the team we've built and the incredible investors and backers we've had.
Speaker A:But I would say most importantly, the customers and customer partnerships that we've built.
Speaker A:Building a first to market solution or a company that's doing something for the first time is never easy.
Speaker A:And we've had incredible partnerships.
Speaker A:And a lot of those early partnerships were actually built through relationships like fmi.
Speaker A:I remember my first time coming to an FMI CAO Leadership council was actually the first time I ever met schnooks.
Speaker A:We were just three guys in the garage.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:And now we support more than 55 retail banners.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And still growing.
Speaker B:Growing very rapidly too, I might add.
Speaker B:All right, so then I'm gonna put you on the spot here.
Speaker B:I'm not gonna let you off easy.
Speaker B:So we look back at 10 years.
Speaker B:I want you to look forward 10 years.
Speaker B:What do you have your eye on the most to be successful and at SIMBE over the next 10 years?
Speaker A:For me, it's really the continued unrelenting focus on helping the customer move forward in this modern age.
Speaker A:So I believe customer centricity kind of wins.
Speaker A:The best companies on the planet are really customer centric and that's really our focus how through technology we can help retailers continue to evolve their operating model through automation, AI and this type of data.
Speaker A:This is what excites us.
Speaker B:So continue to give your customer what they're asking.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:Well, Brad, we want to give you a big thank you and congratulations for tally 4.0.
Speaker C:10 years in this industry is a long time.
Speaker C:So much congratulations from us, from our audience.
Speaker A:Well, thank you.
Speaker C:Thanks for helping us bring all of these interviews with retailers that you're working with and retailers in the industry to talk about what trends we'll be seeing in the next 10 years.
Speaker C:We'll be here all day.
Speaker C:Booth 118 in the FMI Tech section.
Speaker C:Come stop by and see us.
Speaker C:And until the next interview, be careful out there.
