Those familiar with the film Minority Report will have heard this one before: a draconian surveillance system fuelled by odious algorithms that predicts crimes before they take place. Steven Spielberg’s early 00s sci-fi blockbuster has become reality in Japan, where a small start-up has developed an AI technology that identifies suspicious body behaviour based on the countless hours of footage that constitute its formative programming.

Sound dodgy? The breakthrough has sparked delirium among investors who are forecast to invest a cool $200 billion in the nascent technology this year. In an industry known for its narrow margins, the opportunity to plug the estimated $37 billion annual loss of sales from shoplifting is understandably being met with urgency.

Vaak, the start-up behind the preventative technology, garnered national headlines last year when its system led to the arrest of a shoplifter at a convenience store in Yokahoma and have this month begun selling a finished product they hope will supply 100,000 stores across Japan within the next three years. Rapid expansion is anticipated in part because the software supplements existing CCTV cameras which are already ubiquitous in Japan, and the rest of the world.

The pervasive integration of AI technology into the retail industry is only expected to grow from its current use, where companies have begun adopting means of systemising customer behaviour by monitoring facial gestures and other responses to specific products. Online, chatbots are increasingly used instead of customer support services, and self-checkouts, a niche that Vaak are looking to exploit themselves, are helping businesses display their products more effectively.