CARLISLE, PA — Shoppers at local Giant Food Stores will soon be sharing the aisles with a robot.

Marty, a tall, gray robot with googly eyes, is on his way to all 172 Giant stores, which are in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. The in-store robots will move around on their own, identifying hazards like liquid, powder and bulk-food spills and reporting them to human employees. The robots will free up Giant employees to spend more time helping customers, the Carlisle-based company says.

"Bringing robotics and A.I. from a research lab to the sales floor has been a very exciting journey, and we were thrilled by the customer response in our pilot stores," said Nicholas Bertram, president of Giant Food Stores. "Our associates have worked hard to bring this innovation to life with amazing partners. Marty was built through a partnership between Ahold Delhaize USA, which owns Giant and Badger Technologies, a retail-automation company. Over the past year, Giant has been pilot testing Marty in stores in Harrisburg and Carlisle.

The company says it will be deploying Marty to its Giant and Martin's food markets in the coming months. There should be a robot in every store by mid-2019, according to Giant. Founded in Carlisle in 1923, Giant now has nearly 30,000 associates. Locally, there are Giant stores in Langhorne, Yardley, Fairless Hills, Southampton, Levittown, Bensalem, New Hope, Warminster, Horsham and Jamison.