Amazon scales back checkout-free store effort, lays off engineers after technology falls short of goals

• Amazon pulled Just Walk Out technology from grocery stores, laying off nearly all engineers building it

• A "skeleton crew" of engineers and managers are left to maintain the technology

• Just Walk Out failed to meet goals to become fully autonomous, still relying on human reviews for 20-50% of purchases

• The checkout-less system was too expensive and complicated for large grocery stores

• Amazon says it's still committed to Just Walk Out technology, though the internal team developing it is gone