Grocery stores in Alabama selling ammo with AI-driven vending machines

A pair of grocery stores in Alabama are selling firearm ammunition via artificial intelligence-powered vending machines.

The machines, located in Fresh Value stores in Tuscaloosa and Pell City, use facial recognition to verify a customer’s age and ID to make it easier to get firearm ammo. The company, American Rounds, created the machine.

CEO Grant Magers described how the machine works in the video.

"We have a very secure automated retail machine. We're able to age verify, we scan a driver’s license, and then we take a 360 scan for facial recognition for the purchase and matches to the ID. So, the machines really provide an opportunity for safe, affordable, and available ammunition sales," he said.

“[Customers] are so excited about us having the ammo kiosk,” a Fresh Value representative said in the video.

However, the Tuscaloosa location's machine has since been taken down after its legality was questioned during a city council meeting.

Tuscaloosa City Council President Kip Tyner thought the machines were a joke after he received calls about them.

"I got some calls about ammunition being sold in grocery stores, vending machines, the vending machines. Is that? I mean, I thought it was a lie. I thought it was a joke — but it's not," he said.

The vending machines are legal and approved by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Tuscaloosa Police Chief Brent Blankley told the Tuscaloosa Thread .

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The company states that machines are located in four other locations in Oklahoma, and the company is slated to expand further.

"We're really excited about where we're going," Magers said. "We are going to continue to expand here in Alabama. We have machines slated to go into Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas."