New phone app uses the camera to tell store workers what to fix first

Pensa Systems, a company based in Austin, Texas, announced on Nov. 3, 2026 a phone app that walks a store with a camera and tells workers which jobs to do first. It is called Pensa Actions AI. The idea is to replace much of the item-by-item barcode scanning that store checks usually need.

What it does

A worker points a phone or other handheld device at an aisle or a promotional display. The app looks at the scene and decides what matters most. That can mean restocking sold-out items, or fixing shelf price tags, signs and displays. It then gives "turn by turn" directions, similar to car navigation, with the reason behind each step.

Pensa says the app adjusts to each user. New workers get more guidance. Experienced ones get less, and help appears only when they ask.

Who it is for

The app is aimed at people who visit stores regularly for merchandising, setting up inventory or auditing. That includes brand representatives from product makers, retailers and outside workforces. It can run as its own app or appear as a simple task inside the software that already assigns their work.

• Works on nearly any iPhone or Android device, plus Zebra-type barcode scanners
• Newer devices can run the AI on the device, so weak or no signal is less of a problem
• Several hundred device models are supported

The results claimed

Pensa says early use of the technology behind the product automated up to 70% of tedious manual retail work. It also reports up to a 30% improvement in item distribution, a 20% drop in stockouts (items sold out on the shelf) and a 90% drop in shelf voids (empty spots where a product should be).

These figures come from the company, and the wording is "up to." The release does not say how many stores or which customers produced them.

What is not known yet

The release gives no price and no date for when the app will be widely available. It also does not name which retailers use it. Two executives quoted, from Five Star Breaktime Solutions and Oita AI, said the tool "has the potential" to help. That is a hopeful statement, not a result.

Pensa also says an optional memory mode can use sales, inventory, supply chain and promotion data, when available, to rank tasks. Whether a store or supplier gets that depends on what data it connects.