As the largest online retailer in the world, Amazon has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize its delivery services and provide its customers with faster and more efficient deliveries.
The e-commerce giant is using machine learning algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data and streamline its delivery processes. By leveraging AI, Amazon is able to predict customer demand for products, adjust its inventory accordingly, and optimize delivery routes in real time.
This allows for more efficient use of the company’s fleet of delivery vehicles and helps reduce delivery times while ensuring that products are always in stock and ready for immediate shipping.
What Is Amazon’s Main Focus In Their AI Use?
A top Amazon Exec told CNBC that the company is focusing on the use of AI to speed up deliveries by minimising the distance between its customers and its products.
Stefano Perego, vice president of customer fulfilment and global ops services for North America and Europe at Amazon, commented on the key areas of focus for Amazon and its use of AI.
“I think one area that we consider key in order to lower cost to serve is on inventory placement,” Perego said.
“So now, I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with the vast selection we offer to our customers. Imagine how complex is the problem of deciding where to place that unit of inventory. And to place it in a way that we reduce distance to fulfil to customers, and we increase speed of delivery.”
Amazon will use AI to focus on analyzing data and patterns so that it can predict which products will be in demand and where so that customers get their products shipped from a warehouse closest to them, rather than from another area of the country. An initiative Amazon calls “regionalization”.
According to Amazon, 74% of the products ordered in the United States now come from fulfilment centres within the customers’ region.
Other Areas Of Focus
Amazon already offers Prime customers same and next-day delivery, but with the use of AI helping to map and plan delivery routes, taking into account factors such as weather, they hope to deliver more products, faster.
It’s not only faster deliveries that Amazon is focused on. The company is increasingly using more robotics in its centres to help pack and fulfil orders.
Amazon states that 75% of all orders are now packed, at least in part, by robots.
Speaking on the global concern of robotics replacing jobs, Pelago said “Eventually, the type of job that an employee will be called to do in a fulfilment centre will be increasingly a high judgment type of job”, as opposed to lifting heavy packages and completing repetitive tasks.
As technology continues to evolve, it is clear that both AI and robotics will play an even greater role in the delivery industry, and Amazon is at the forefront of this trend.
By investing in cutting-edge technologies and leveraging AI to optimize its delivery services, Amazon is enhancing the customer experience and maintaining its competitive edge in the market.
