Tracking specific used garments is nearly impossible due to the decentralized supply chain. An exported bale is opened, its contents mixed with items from other countries, and then re-baled for new destinations, rendering technologies like RFID tags useless after the first step.

Walmart is replacing all paper price stickers with digital shelf labels and has patented an algorithmic pricing system. This isn't just an efficiency upgrade; it's a fundamental infrastructure shift that brings dynamic, algorithm-driven pricing—common in e-commerce—to the aisles of brick-and-mortar stores, heralding an era of 'price extraction'.

Retail "shrink" is not monolithic. Home Depot's asset protection team strategically divides losses into "malicious" (theft) and "operational" (internal process errors). For them, malicious activity accounts for 70% of losses, allowing them to focus resources effectively.

Counterintuitively, securing high-theft products can increase sales. The friction for legitimate customers is offset by the benefit of the product being consistently in stock, preventing lost sales from empty shelves caused by theft.

For large retailers, the primary value of AI in asset protection is currently to boost investigative efficiency. The technology helps compress case timelines from months to weeks, allowing teams to handle more cases, rather than preventing individual thefts in real-time.

For connected products like Apple's AirTag, traditional testing for functionality and accidental misuse is insufficient. A critical new dimension is testing for intentional, malicious use, such as stalking. This requires product teams to adopt an adversarial mindset and build safeguards against ways their products could be weaponized by bad actors.

Prime Group developed a smart lock for storage units that operates without batteries or Wi-Fi. It harnesses the small amount of passive energy emitted by a user's smartphone to power the lock mechanism. This innovation solves the massive operational problem of replacing dead batteries across thousands of units and improves security.

Current home security systems are passive. The next major opportunity lies in active deterrence, moving beyond cameras to physical, patrolling robots. The market wants a "better big dog"—a device that can actively patrol property and deter threats, a more practical application of robotics than consumer humanoids.

The trend of degrading user experience for profit is moving beyond online platforms. Everyday objects like tractors, fridges, and cars are becoming "computers in a fancy case," allowing digital lock-in tactics to infect the physical world and limit consumer ownership.