For years, the promise of out-of-home advertising has been tempered by a simple, stubborn problem: you can put a screen anywhere, but you can't see who's looking at it. The industry has traded in broad estimates and footfall counts, a world away from the precise, person-level analytics that define digital campaigns. In Hong Kong, a company that began by connecting vending machines to the internet is now trying to close that gap, one anonymous facial scan at a time.
Founded in 2009, SmartRetail has spent over a decade building a physical network it reports spans nearly 20,000 touchpoints across five Asian markets [Think Business Think Hong Kong, 2025]. These are not just billboards. They are digitally connected vending machines, kiosks, and retail store integrations where consumers can interact, often for a reward. The company's newer bet is that this same infrastructure can host a second, more valuable layer: a computer vision system, which it calls Perceptron, designed to measure the audience that digital out-of-home has always struggled to see [SmartRetail, retrieved 2026].
From IoT Vending to AI Profiling
The company's evolution reads like a case study in adapting a physical wedge. Its early focus, detailed in a 2018 interview with then-CEO Kevin Anthony Williams, was on IoT-enabled vending machines that allowed for remote management, dynamic pricing, and delivering marketing videos [Tech Collective SEA, Feb 2018]. This established the foundational B2B2C model,connecting brands and retailers with consumers at high-frequency locations. The network grew, reportedly partnering with major retailers like 7-Eleven, Ministop, and Swire Coca-Cola [Think Business Think Hong Kong, 2025].
The strategic pivot came with the integration of AI. SmartRetail now describes itself as a "B2B2C Consumer Engagement Platform" with two core products: its original reward-based advertising system and its newer AI profiling computer vision [Think Business Think Hong Kong, 2025]. The latter is the technical heart of its current ambition. In a pilot with market research firm IPSOS in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay, the company tested its system's ability to measure footfall, predict gender, and estimate age in real time [SmartRetail, July 2025]. The company reported its age predictions had a Mean Absolute Error of about 4.5 years, a figure it says was validated against manual assessments [MarketingTechGinsights, retrieved 2026].
The Bet on Measurable Physical Engagement
SmartRetail's thesis rests on a convergence of physical scale and algorithmic insight. The network provides the distribution; the AI aims to provide the accountability that media buyers demand. This moves the company beyond a pure advertising play into the realm of retail media and audience intelligence.
- Physical Distribution. With an estimated 20,000 touchpoints, the company has a deployed footprint that would be prohibitively expensive and slow for a software-only startup to replicate [Recordowl, retrieved 2026]. This includes machines in high-traffic transit areas, a fact underscored by a separate pilot with JCDecaux Transport to analyze audience behavior in Hong Kong's Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station [Plataforma Media, Dec 2025].
- AI-Driven Metrics. The Perceptron system is designed to move metrics beyond simple impressions. By capturing estimated demographics and engagement, it attempts to answer the classic advertiser question: "Who saw my ad, and did they care?" The involvement of a third-party auditor like IPSOS in the pilot is a deliberate nod to the credibility required in the measurement space [IoT M2M Council, retrieved 2026].
- The Engagement Loop. The platform is engineered to connect exposure to action. A consumer might see an ad on a screen, complete a simple interaction for a reward (like a voucher from a connected vending machine), creating a closed-loop signal of engagement that pure measurement cannot [SmartRetail, retrieved 2026].
Funding and the Path to Scale
The company's financial runway to pursue this bet appears to have been bolstered by a seed round in early 2024. While the exact amount of that round is not publicly detailed, total disclosed funding is reported to be approximately $12 million, with investors including Animoca Brands and Kumpulan Modal Perdana [Caplight, retrieved 2026] [TNGlobal, Feb 2024]. This capital likely supports both the maintenance of its physical network and the development of its AI capabilities. As of 2024, the company was reported to have about 80 employees [PitchBook, retrieved 2026].
The leadership has seen an evolution from founding CEO Kevin Anthony Williams to Adam So, who is now identified as the company's founder and CEO [SmartRetail, July 2025] [TheCompanyCheck, retrieved 2026]. So's public engagement, such as participating in discussions with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology students, positions him as a figure advocating for the region's tech ecosystem [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026].
| Founder | Role | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Adam So | Founder & CEO | Current chief executive, associated with the company's AI and trade promotion efforts [SmartRetail, July 2025]. |
| Kevin Anthony Williams | Founder & Former CEO | Led the company in its earlier IoT vending machine phase, as per a 2018 interview [Tech Collective SEA, Feb 2018]. |
The Competitive and Regulatory Landscape
No bet in biometrics and retail media is without its counterfactuals. SmartRetail operates in a competitive field with players like Beijing Freebee Electronic Commerce and Ubox, and must contend with the inherent complexities of computer vision in public spaces. The primary risk is not technological novelty, but execution at scale and navigating regional sensitivities around privacy.
The company's most plausible answer to these concerns is embedded in its published pilot methodology. By focusing on anonymous, aggregated profiling rather than individual identification, and by partnering with established auditing firms like IPSOS, it seeks to build a case for responsible, insights-driven measurement [SmartRetail, July 2025]. The business model also does not require the AI on every screen; the legacy reward-advertising platform can continue to generate revenue as the measurement product is rolled out selectively.
What to Watch in the Next Twelve Months
The immediate milestone for SmartRetail will be transitioning its AI audience measurement from controlled pilots to commercial contracts. The partnership announced with marketing platform Prizm in March 2026 to enhance online-to-offline journeys is a signal of this commercial push [Marketing-Interactive, Mar 2026]. Success will be defined by landing its first major brand or agency client that buys media specifically for the auditable, demographic insights its system promises.
For the advertisers and media buyers who are the ultimate customers, the standard of care in out-of-home advertising today is often a blend of circulation estimates, manual surveys, and proxy metrics. A campaign on a digital screen in a mall or transit station is typically bought based on the total number of people expected to pass by, with little granular data on who stopped, looked, or belonged to a target demographic. SmartRetail's attempt is to inject a layer of computational certainty into that process, treating the anonymous crowd not as a monolithic bloc, but as a measurable audience. The patient population, in this case, is the entire out-of-home advertising industry, which has long sought a cure for its measurement blindness. The next year will show if a therapy built on 20,000 connected touchpoints and a 4.5-year margin of error is the treatment it has been waiting for.
Sources
- [Think Business Think Hong Kong, 2025] Exhibitors | https://thinkbusinessthinkhk.com/2025-jakarta/symposium/en/information-center/exhibitors.html
- [SmartRetail, retrieved 2026] AI Profiling Computer Vision | https://smartretail.co/ai-profiling-computer-vision/
- [Tech Collective SEA, Feb 2018] Five Questions with Kevin Williams, SmartRetail | https://techcollectivesea.com/2018/02/20/five-questions-kevin-williams-smartretail/
- [SmartRetail, July 2025] SmartRetail Showcases AI-Powered Retail Solutions at 'Think Business Think Hong Kong' | https://smartretail.co/whats_new/think-business-think-hong-kong/
- [MarketingTechGinsights, retrieved 2026] Article on SmartRetail AI | Source integrated from research snippets
- [Recordowl, retrieved 2026] SmartRetail Profile | Source integrated from research snippets
- [Plataforma Media, Dec 2025] Article on JCDecaux Transport Pilot | Source integrated from research snippets
- [IoT M2M Council, retrieved 2026] Article on IPSOS Auditing | Source integrated from research snippets
- [SmartRetail, retrieved 2026] Reward Engagement Out-of-Home Platform | https://smartretail.co/retail-media/reward-engagement-out-of-home-platform/
- [Caplight, retrieved 2026] SmartRetail Funding | https://www.caplight.com/company/smartretail
- [TNGlobal, Feb 2024] Article on Seed Round | Source integrated from research snippets
- [PitchBook, retrieved 2026] SmartRetail Employee Count | Source integrated from research snippets
- [TheCompanyCheck, retrieved 2026] SmartRetail Company Profile | https://www.thecompanycheck.com/company/b/smartretail/v1kpibv8ifogxg5fp
- [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Adam So Profile Activity | https://www.linkedin.com/in/soadam/
- [Marketing-Interactive, Mar 2026] Prizm and SmartRetail Partnership | https://www.marketing-interactive.com/prizm-and-smartretail-partnership-enhancing-the-o2o2o-experience-in-asia