The software giant is developing its own automated-checkout technology, according to the Associated Press. 

Tech firm Ava Retail is working with Microsoft to create a cloud-based system that would pull data from in-store cameras or sensors. Amazon.com opened its first cashier-free Amazon Go store this year, in Seattle, and says it has plans for additional stores, in Chicago and San Francisco. Overhead cameras and similar technology help track shoppers and process purchases.

Ava and Microsoft, both of which are based in Redmond, Wash., have disclosed no information about when the technology will be available. But they are hardly alone in trying to catch up to Amazon Go.

“Within five years everyone in the country will have visited an autonomous-checkout store,” said Michael Suswal, co-founder of San Francisco–based Standard Cognition, a startup that is at work on its own automated-checkout system using overhead cameras.