Innovation Inc: Contact-free shopping and dining are taking off

The coronavirus crisis has forced companies to quickly adjust to conducting business online, spurring an incredible rush to cloud services of all kinds, as this newsletter has covered extensively. The swell of technological transformation isn't just happening digitally, though: Two recent stories show how brick-and-mortar businesses, too, have been adopting new technologies in-store that make shopping or dining during the pandemic more appealing to patrons.

For example, Thanx, a San Francisco-based customer engagement company that works with thousands of restaurants, just launched a system where diners can scan a tableside QR code to order their meal and pay. The tech drastically cuts down the amount of interactions that diners need to have with their servers — an appreciated safety precaution during the pandemic — while also making the process more efficient for restaurants.

"Tableside represents what we believe to be not only the culmination of that digital revolution but also necessary in this COVID world," Thanx CEO Zach Goldstein told Business Insider's Kristen Hawley.

Similarly, grocery chain Giant Eagle just launched its first checkout-free convenience store, in Pittsburgh, through a partnership with artificial intelligence startup Grabango. Grabango's computer vision system tracks the items that a person picks up, allowing shoppers to pay simply by scanning an app as they walk out the door.

"People always were — and continue to be even more — concerned about waiting in line," Grabango's chief business officer, Andy Radlow, told Business Insider's Keerthi Vendantam. While the two companies had partnered up before the pandemic hit, the platform's value has only increased as people try to minimize time spent in stores.

Though the contactless technologies from Thanx and Grabango are both particularly well-suited to this moment in history, both companies say their platforms are the natural evolution of long-time digital trends and, as Thanx CEO Goldetein put it, "will become the new normal well beyond COVID."

Below are a few other stories that you may have missed from the last two weeks. And as always: If you're interested in receiving this biweekly newsletter and other updates from our ongoing Innovation Inc. series, please be sure to sign up here.

• Why Google Cloud made the rare decision to invest $100 million in telehealth giant Amwell, according to its top salesman
• A virtual law firm is hiring freelance lawyers to create a Netflix-style subscription legal service that could disrupt the US legal industry
• Utah students are getting free Amazon AWS training, but if the skills fall out of favor it may not lead to a better education or a tech job
• KPMG's US chief explains why CEOs are putting more focus on digital investments over workforce training
• A top Amazon Alexa exec shares the 3 steps IT departments should take to build a culture of innovation
• One of Google's top doctors explains how its coronavirus response is feeding into its long-term plans to reinvent how people get health information