Online retail giant Amazon is unveiling three new tools that utilize artificial intelligence to make deliveries more efficient.
These AI tools will enhance the delivery process, enabling the company to both predict customer needs and locate their homes more effectively. They engage the technology of generative AI, demand forecasting models, and robotics. It's part of Amazon's $2 billion plan to promote sustainability.
Wellspring generative AI is being used to improve delivery address accuracy. The tool harnesses data from sources such as satellite imagery, customer instructions, and past deliveries to better inform drivers where to drop off packages. It improves drivers' ability to navigate complex environments, like multi-building and brand-new apartment complexes that may not always appear on navigation apps and platforms. That reduces unnecessary gas usage if a driver gets lost. It also keeps delivery trucks on the road for shorter time periods, reducing traffic for everyone.
Amazon has also developed a new demand forecasting model to predict what customers want, where they'll want it, and when. Accomplishing this will help the company reduce fuel use in transporting goods nationwide. According to Amazon, it has already increased national forecasts by 10% for deal events and regional forecasts by 20% for millions of popular items.
The company is equipping robots with agentic AI, too. That means robots used at any point in the delivery process will be autonomous to some degree and able to understand plain-spoken instructions issued by human workers. These robots will be designed to perform repetitive and physically taxing tasks, freeing up human employees to work on higher-level tasks.
"These are just a few of the many ways we're using AI to improve our customer, employee, and partner experience, as AI changes every aspect of how we work," Amazon said in a corporate blog post.
This move is a small step in the right direction for the e-commerce giant, which is otherwise a top polluter. Between 2019 and 2023, Amazon's delivery van carbon dioxide emissions increased by more than 190%, and its heavy-duty truck emissions rose by 51%.
Meanwhile, shareholders are rejecting other green initiatives, such as monitoring data related to the company's carbon output and plastic usage. At the same time, the data it harvests from customers is being stored while contributing to our planet's overheating.
Still, Amazon says it's on track to eliminate its carbon footprint, committing to net-zero emissions by 2040. Customers must decide whether that promise is enough.
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