When AI Barcode Scanning Knows It Doesn't Know

At Scandit, we believe in building smarter assistants, not smarter replacements.

In my last post about AI in barcode scanning, I talked about the three levels of intelligence in camera-based scanning systems. Level Three was about context awareness: systems that understand not just what they see, but what the user actually intends to scan.

With the release of the Scandit SDK 8.0, we're introducing new AI-powered barcode scanning features that take another step toward a comprehensive context-aware scanner. But this one's different. It's not about making the Scandit AI Engine smarter at making decisions. It's about making it smart enough to know when not to decide.

The problem with being too smart

In the SDK 7.0 we released context-based barcode scanning that changed how millions of workers interact with scanners. The numbers back it up: for one of the largest US grocers using our technology, we're currently preventing one in four unintentional scans. That's not incremental. That's massive.

But good though this feature is, we kept hearing the same thing from customers, users, and our support team: when barcodes are packed close together like in the image below, even the AI fails.

Not because the algorithm is broken, but because there's genuinely not enough information to pick one barcode over another. Two candidates, same probability. The system picks one randomly. The user scans the wrong item.

The instinct here is to throw more AI at the problem. Better models. More training data. Smarter heuristics.

We went the other direction.

"I know that I know nothing"

Socrates had it right 2,400 years ago. Real intelligence isn't about having all the answers. It's about knowing the limits of what you know.

Most AI we interact with today does the opposite. Chatbots confidently generate answers even when they're hallucinating. Recommendation systems present suggestions as certainties. The modern AI sycophant is always ready to tell you it knows exactly what you need, even when it's guessing.

Our newest AI-powered barcode scanning feature takes a different approach. When the system's confidence drops below a threshold, when there's genuine ambiguity in the scene, it doesn't pretend to know. It doesn't pick randomly and hope for the best. It recognizes the uncertainty and hands control to someone who actually has the context to decide: the user.

This is harder to build than it sounds. It requires the system not just to classify barcodes, but to classify its own confidence. To understand the limits of its understanding. To admit, in a sense, "I know that I know nothing about which barcode you actually want."

Scanning a barcode with glare from a grocery store shelf

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The human in the loop

Think about autonomous driving. Fully self-driving vehicles are the dream, but the reality is messier. The best systems today don't try to handle every edge case autonomously. They recognize when the situation is ambiguous — construction zones, unusual traffic patterns, bad weather — and hand control back to the driver.

Not because the human is always better. But because in uncertain situations, the human has context the system doesn't. And more importantly, the human needs to stay in control when things get complicated.

In the SDK 8.0, our AI-powered barcode scanning works the same way.

When the Scandit AI Engine detects a dense barcode scene where standard scan-intention logic can't confidently pick the right target, it doesn't guess. It adapts the UI, gives the user an aimer, and lets them point at exactly what they want. The interface makes it clear: you're in control now.

Once the AI is confident again, it takes the load back. Seamless. Automatic. No manual mode switching. No buried settings menu.

AI that empowers, not replaces

We spent a ton of time user testing this. What we learned is that people don't want to be automated away. They want tools that handle the repetitive, predictable stuff, but get out of the way when real thinking is required.

That's the difference between an assistant and a replacement.

A replacement tries to do your job. An assistant removes the cognitive load so you can focus on decisions that actually matter. In a warehouse, that's knowing which of three nearly identical labels is the right one for the order you're fulfilling. The system can't know that. You can.

The trick is building AI that knows the difference.

AI-powered barcode scanning in the SDK 8.0 doesn't make fewer decisions than in the previous major version of our software. It makes better decisions about when to decide and when to defer. In machine learning, this is called uncertainty quantification. In product design, it's called not annoying your users.

What this actually looks like

Here's how it works in practice:

You're scanning items on a shelf. Most of the time, the scanner just works. You point, it scans, you move on. Then you hit a box with three shipping labels crammed together. The UI shifts. The preview enlarges. An aimer appears. You point at the label you want, hold steady for a second, and it scans.

The system detected the ambiguity, adapted the interface, and handed you control, without you touching a single setting.

Then you move to the next item. Sparse barcodes again. The UI shifts back. You're back to fast, automatic scanning.

No friction. No mode confusion. Just the right tool at the right time.

A step toward collaborative intelligence

The Scandit SDK 8.0 doesn't claim to bring full autonomy to barcode scanning, and that's the point. The goal isn't to remove humans from the process, but to build systems that work with them.

Each generation of scanning intelligence gets us closer to a model where AI handles the heavy load, but humans remain the ultimate source of context and control. The SDK 8.0 is another small, deliberate step in that direction.

You can try our newest AI-powered barcode scanning yourself now in SparkScan, our pre-built component that gives your top performance and optimized UX with just a few lines of code. It will be available in Barcode Capture (for custom integrations) from v.8.2.0.

As the saying goes, "The best pilots let the autopilot fly, but they never stop paying attention."

With SDK 8.0, our scanners are getting smarter. But more importantly, they're getting better at keeping humans in control when it matters.