For Amazon supply drivers, new glasses promise one thing extra than simply clearer imaginative and prescient or the blocked solar glare.
Amazon is creating AI-powered sensible glasses for its supply drivers, the corporate stated in a Wednesday blog post. The glasses will enable 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 info like hazards, in addition to maps that direct drivers to explicit constructing unit numbers.
The glasses will routinely activate as soon as a driver parks at a supply location and may assist prescription and transition lenses inside its design. Eliminating needing to make use of a telephone, 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 present drivers “real-time defect detection” in the event that they drop off a bundle at a unsuitable handle. The machine will even be capable of alter 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, notably in rural areas, by 2026. One Amazon supply driver made on common 65,700 deliveries in 2024, translating to 100,375 packages yearly, in line with data compiled by CapitalOne Purchasing. That’s about 27 deliveries per hour.
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Reuters reported the product’s growth final November. Nameless sources instructed the outlet that whereas the glasses might improve driver productiveness by releasing up hand area for staff to hold extra packages, the corporate could have bother creating a battery capable of final a whole shift, which could be up to 10 hours. Drivers may additionally not wish to put on the gadgets, 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 also be creating operational applied sciences for warehouse staff, the corporate announced Wednesday. Blue Jay, a robotics system utilizing a number of arms to raise and type packages, goals to mitigate the necessity for workers to raise heavy gadgets. Mission Eluna is an agentic AI mannequin that can monitor quite a few dashboards and make choices, resembling about lowering sorting bottlenecks, with the objective to minimize the “cognitive load” of staff. The AI agent will likely 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 consultants have stated automation processes will certainly displace human staff, with College of Louisville professor of pc science Roman Yampolskiy saying AI might 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 likely be automated, then there is no such thing as a plan B. You can not retrain.”
A New York Times investigation printed on Tuesday reported, citing inner 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 just lately introduced plans to fill 250,000 positions forward of the end-of-year vacation push.
“Leaked paperwork usually paint an incomplete and deceptive image of our plans, and that’s the case right here,” Nantel instructed 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 instructed 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 likely 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 concentrate on higher-level duties.”
“Persons are wonderful at utilizing frequent sense, reasoning, and understanding complicated issues,” he continued. “Why would you not use that?”
