AI smart vending & micro-retail
Retail that runs itself.
8Kava connects coolers, vending machines, kiosks, lockers and walk-in micro-stores to one AI platform. It counts every item, forecasts every shelf, plans every route and takes care of the routine work.
- connected retail points
- 3,400+connected retail points
- checkout accuracy
- 99.4%checkout accuracy
- service visits
- −27%service visits
Put a store anywhere people are, even where a store makes no sense.
Each format runs on Kava OS, so data, payments, pricing and service work the same everywhere. Start with one cooler or retrofit five hundred machines.
Smart Coolers
Tap, open, take, go. Vision and per-shelf weight sensing charge the right item, every time.
Kava Link Retrofit
A $349 module that makes a legacy machine smart in about 22 minutes. No forklift needed.
Micro-Market Kiosks
Self-checkout that recognizes a banana without a barcode, for open-shelf breakrooms.
Autonomous Micro-Stores
A 160 sq ft walk-in store with up to 700 items that fits in a parking space and never closes.
Smart Lockers
Hot, cold and ambient pickup for meals, online orders, laptops and tools.
PPE & Industrial
Badge-based dispensing with per-role limits, so gloves stop disappearing.
Cameras guess. Scales doubt. Together they're right 99.4% of the time.
Vision alone mixes up look-alike cans. Weight alone can't tell a sandwich from a salad of the same mass. Kava Vision fuses both, on the device, in under a second. Four edge cameras see what moved, per-shelf load cells with ±2 g resolution confirm what left, and the receipt lands within 10 seconds of the door closing.
The result is fewer disputes and fewer refunds. Shrink drops 62% when sites move from honor-system shelves to Kava Coolers.
- Recognition runs on the device. No images of faces are stored or sent.
- Restock events are detected and reconciled automatically.
- Look-alike SKUs are resolved by weight signature, not guesswork.
An AI that doesn't just answer questions. It does the 4:30 a.m. work.
Dashboards tell you what went wrong yesterday. Kava Agent acts on it today. It drafts pre-kitting pick lists, re-sequences the route around a broken compressor, marks down sandwiches that expire tonight, and opens the service ticket before a host calls.
You decide how much freedom it gets. Set each action type to Suggest, Approve or Auto, with guardrails such as "never below cost" or "max ±15%". Every action is logged, and every price change can be rolled back with one click.
- Learns your fleet for 14 days before it proposes autonomous actions.
- Ask in plain English: "Which sites lost money on cold brew last month?"
- Works across forecasting, pricing, routing, maintenance and suppliers.
What changes in the first year
Live in 10 business days. Smarter every week after.
A typical smart-cooler program of up to 10 units goes from signed agreement to first transaction in 10 business days.
Score the site
Site Intelligence models foot traffic, shift patterns and dwell time to choose the format, placement and opening assortment.
Install and connect
Our technicians or a vetted field partner set up the hardware on a standard 115 V outlet with LTE, Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Every device buffers 72 hours offline.
Stock and go live
The planogram, prices, payments and employer subsidies are configured in Kava OS. First tap, first sale.
Let it learn
After 14 days of observation, Kava Agent starts proposing pick lists, price changes and service actions for your approval.
Built for places that never fully close
Healthcare
Real food for the 3 a.m. shift, with audit-ready temperature logs.
Manufacturing & Logistics
Breakrooms and PPE for every shift, not just first shift.
Workplaces
A pantry that runs on subsidies and payroll deduct, not petty cash.
Higher Education
Breakfast at 1 a.m. during finals week, restocked by sunrise.
Multifamily
A 24/7 lobby market residents pay for and owners don't.
Transit, Airports & EV
Retail for 20-minute dwell times at gates, platforms and chargers.
We didn't have to rip out a single machine. The fleet just started telling us what it needed.
The most valuable hour in your building might be 3 a.m.
Cafeterias close. Night crews, students and travelers don't stop being hungry. An unattended store turns those hours into revenue and goodwill without adding a single staffed shift. Which of your locations is empty of food at exactly the moment people need it?
Three ways to work with 8Kava
For Operators
Grow your route without growing your trucks. Open software, retrofit kits and an agent that plans the day.
For Location Hosts
Give people a 24/7 amenity with zero capital. We can install, stock and run it for you.
For Brands
Sample, launch and advertise on screens that see the purchase, not just the impression.
Quick answers
Do I have to replace my existing vending machines?
No. Kava Link connects to the MDB bus and DEX port of most legacy machines in about 22 minutes. It adds real-time telemetry, remote pricing and cashless passthrough for $349 per machine. Replace hardware only when the economics say so. Our retrofit vs. replace guide shows the math.
Can I keep my current payment processor?
Yes. Bring your own processor at no markup, or use Kava Pay at interchange-plus 0.35% + $0.05. We never add a convenience fee for shoppers.
Does the smart cooler use facial recognition?
No. Recognition runs on the device and looks at products, not people. No images of faces are stored or sent. Read more on our Security & Trust page.
What does it cost?
Kava OS starts at $19 per device per month. Hardware can be purchased outright or leased through Vending-as-a-Service from $99 per month. See pricing.
Where to go next
Show us a hallway. We'll show you a store.
Tell us about one location, or one thousand. We'll come back with the format, the placement and the numbers.