It's not my area of expertise so I would be interested in what some of our SB experts think. But here are a few of my personal observations.

My first job as a teenager was working at the Kroger in Barracks Rd. (Not the one that's there now but the one that used to be in the island where the Yankee Candle and the shoe store are now). In those days we did it all. Stocked shelves and manually applied price stickers to product, range up sales at the register (everything was keyed, no scanning), bagged and loaded groceries into the cart, pushed the cart outside and loaded the groceries into the customers car. There was a lot of back-end HR and accounting that was ongoing.

When I go into a grocery store now most of the services/jobs have been automated or shifted to the customer. Manually applying and changing price decals was time consuming. The customer now handles their own bags. Stores have evolved from the cashier run scanner to the customer run scanner. Sams Club now wants me to scan items with my phone when I put them in the cart (eliminating the cashier completely).

I recently went into a McDonalds for the first time in years. An employee directed me away from the counter to a bank of kiosks where I could place my order. I can order my Starbucks and Panera from the car before I go in. Hilton lets me check in and received my room key on phone. So no need for the desk clerk. It seems like once this gets rolling everyone else will have to automate to compete?