Amazon is always looking for ways to get your packages to you even faster, and in a move that should surprise no one, it's now turning to artificial intelligence to speed up the process, particularly as it relates to decisions on where to store its products.
The company is reportedly leaning into AI for mapping and planning routes, to improve search functions, and determining where to store inventory. That last one is "key in order to lower cost," says Stefano Perego, Amazon's VP of customer fulfillment and global ops services for North America and Europe.
In an interview with CNBC, Perego pointed to Amazon's "vast selection" and the "complex...problem of deciding where to place that unit of inventory. And to place it in a way that we reduce distance to fulfill to customers, and we increase speed of delivery."
Amazon's focus on "regionalization"—an effort to ship products from the consumer's nearest warehouse rather than another part of the country—requires technology that can predict what items will be most in-demand in which areas, CNBC says.
It's unclear exactly what role artificial intelligence plays in this system. But the idea is that if certain products are kept closer to certain customers, Amazon can more effectively (i.e. cheaply) offer same-day or next-day deliveries to more people—not just Prime members. Currently, more than 74% of products ordered in the US are shipped from fulfillment centers within the consumer's region.
Last year, Amazon unveiled Sparrow, a "state-of-the-art" robot that detects, selects, and handles individual products with the promise of streamlining shipments to maintain speedy deliveries. While the black-and-yellow arm can automate a "critical part" of the company's fulfillment processes, it's not designed to replace human workers, Amazon says.
Perego described automation as "collaborative robotics," adding that "I think that what is happening is really a transformation of the type of jobs." When automation and AI become more prominent, humans' jobs will change, but not disappear, he says.
"Eventually, the type of job that an employee will be called to do in a fulfillment center will be increasingly a high-judgment type of job," Perego says. "And the heavy lifting and repetitive tasks will be done through robotics. That's fine. It's a transformation rather than a substitution."