Finnish supermarket chain deploys AI voice assistant on public screens — in what may be a world first
K-Supermarket has piloted a talking digital display in three Finnish shopping centres, allowing passersby to hold spoken conversations with an animated character and receive personalised recipe suggestions without touching the screen.
By Martti Asikainen, 5.5.2026 | Photo by K-ryhmä
K-Supermarket, one of Finland’s largest grocery chains, launched a short pilot in April of what it describes as the world’s first conversational AI assistant embedded in public digital out-of-home advertising screens. Shoppers at three Finnish shopping centres could walk up to a screen, speak aloud, and receive spoken recipe recommendations in real time.
The animated character, named “The Shopkeeper’s Little Helper,” appeared on screens at Kamppi Shopping Centre in Helsinki, IsoKristiina Shopping Centre in Lappeenranta, and Ratina Shopping Centre in Tampere between 13 and 26 April. The screens are operated in partnership with out-of-home media companies Bauer Media Outdoor and Ocean Outdoor.
From billboard to conversation
A shopper approaching one of the screens sees an animated character and hears a greeting. They speak, asking what to cook for dinner, or what to make with chicken and rice, and the display responds in spoken Finnish, drawing on a recipe database built from K-Supermarket’s own content.
No tapping, no typing, no menu to navigate. Users can save a suggested recipe by scanning a QR code shown on screen. Speech travels from a microphone directly to an AI model, which processes the input and responds in spoken language with zero keyboard interaction required.
Behind the system is a curated recipe database drawn from K-Supermarket’s existing recipe content; users can save a suggestion by scanning a QR code displayed on screen.
According to Milla Sorsakivi, the Marketing Director of K-Supermarket, they wanted to make everyday cooking easier in all kinds of ways. Sorsakivi says that they are genuinely excited to be part of developing this groundbreaking technology that offers real, tangible value in people’s daily lives.
The technical implementation was built by Interactive Inuits, a Finnish digital innovation studio that forms part of the SipuliGroup technology conglomerate. The creative concept was developed by Finnish advertising agency United Imaginations.
“This project is concrete proof that out-of-home screens can be two-way and genuinely useful, not just attention-seeking,” said Sampo Pihlaja, Head of Digital at Interactive Inuits, in a statement. “When a screen can answer questions, make recommendations, and help with decisions, it stops being an advertising screen and becomes a service point.”
A narrow claim, carefully made
Similar voice-interactive screens have appeared in limited trials in parts of Asia and at selected events in the United States, but K-Supermarket and its partners describe this as the first known deployment in an open public space, with a conversational AI assistant integrated into existing outdoor advertising infrastructure.
The claim is the company’s own and has not been independently verified. The “world’s first” designation applies specifically to the combination of open public space, existing DOOH infrastructure, and real-time two-way voice interaction — a narrower criterion than it might first appear.
The biggest challenge for the developers, they say, was making the interaction feel natural — ensuring that a public screen conversation does not feel robotic or awkward, but fluid enough that any passerby feels comfortable engaging with it.
Whether the pilot leads to a wider rollout, or how users responded to the screens during the two-week trial, had not been disclosed at the time of writing. K-Supermarket has not announced whether or when a permanent deployment might follow.
