For Amazon supply drivers, new glasses promise one thing extra than simply clearer imaginative and prescient or the blocked solar glare.
Amazon is growing AI-powered good glasses for its supply drivers, the corporate stated in a Wednesday blog post. The glasses will permit drivers to scan packages, following detailed strolling instructions, and doc proof-of-delivery with out their telephones. Utilizing cameras, in addition to AI-powered sensing skills, the know-how will create an augmented actuality show for drivers that features data like hazards, in addition to maps that direct drivers to specific constructing unit numbers.
The glasses will mechanically activate as soon as a driver parks at a supply location and might help prescription and transition lenses inside its design. Eliminating needing to make use of a cellphone, as was the supply of comfort directions, is aimed to extend the protection and effectivity of the supply course of, the corporate stated.
Future iterations of the glasses intention to offer drivers “real-time defect detection” in the event that they drop off a package deal at a unsuitable deal with. The system can even be capable to regulate to low-light situations and detect pets in clients’ yards.
Expedited supply has remained an indicator of Amazon’s enterprise as it competes with the rising e-commerce capabilities of Walmart and different retail giants. Amazon introduced in June a $4 billion investment in tripling its supply community measurement, significantly in rural areas, by 2026. One Amazon supply driver made on common 65,700 deliveries in 2024, translating to 100,375 packages yearly, in keeping with data compiled by CapitalOne Purchasing. That’s about 27 deliveries per hour.
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Reutersreported the product’s improvement final November. Nameless sources informed the outlet that whereas the glasses may improve driver productiveness by releasing up hand area for employees to hold extra packages, the corporate could have bother growing a battery in a position to final a whole shift, which may be up to 10 hours. Drivers can also not wish to put on the units, which can be uncomfortable or distracting, the sources stated.
Amazon didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for touch upon issues in regards to the battery length or comfortability of the glasses.
Amazon’s automation push
Along with AI-powered glasses for drivers, Amazon can be growing operational applied sciences for warehouse employees, the corporate announced Wednesday. Blue Jay, a robotics system utilizing a number of arms to elevate and type packages, goals to mitigate the necessity for workers to elevate heavy gadgets. Undertaking Eluna is an agentic AI mannequin that may monitor quite a few dashboards and make selections, reminiscent of about lowering sorting bottlenecks, with the aim to minimize the “cognitive load” of employees. The AI agent will probably be piloted at a Tennessee achievement heart throughout the vacation season.
The corporate’s automation push has introduced with it concern about the way forward for human employment. Some AI specialists have stated automation processes will certainly displace human employees, with College of Louisville professor of pc science Roman Yampolskiy saying AI may spike unemployment levels up to 99% within the subsequent 5 years—a extra eye-popping determine than even Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s projection of the know-how replacing 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs in the identical interval.
“Earlier than we all the time stated, ‘This job goes to be automated, retrain to do that different job,’” Yampolskiy stated in an episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast final month. “But when I’m telling you that every one jobs will probably be automated, then there isn’t a plan B. You can’t retrain.”
A New York Times investigation revealed on Tuesday reported, citing inside paperwork, Amazon plans to automate 75% of its operations. That interprets to roughly 600,000 jobs for which the corporate wouldn’t want to rent sooner or later.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel stated the investigation didn’t precisely replicate the corporate’s hiring technique, and that the corporate not too long ago introduced plans to fill 250,000 positions forward of the end-of-year vacation push.
“Leaked paperwork typically paint an incomplete and deceptive image of our plans, and that’s the case right here,” Nantel informed Fortune in an announcement. “On this occasion, the supplies seem to replicate the angle of only one group and don’t characterize our total hiring technique throughout our varied operations enterprise strains—now or transferring ahead.”
Amazon executives have made an effort to assuage anxieties about the way forward for employment. Amazon Robotics’ chief technologist Tye Brady informed Fortune in Could the corporate’s automation developments are supposed to improve, not change, the roles of people. The interview at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI convention in London came about after Amazon introduced the launch of Vulcan, a robotic arm with a way of contact.
“I will probably be unabashedly proud that we intention to get rid of, I imply get rid of, each menial, mundane, and repetitive job on the market,” Brady stated. “And if it’s repetitive, we wish to automate that, as a result of we are going to by no means run out of issues to do for our staff. We would like them to deal with higher-level duties.”
“Persons are wonderful at utilizing widespread sense, reasoning, and understanding complicated issues,” he continued. “Why would you not use that?”
