For years, Amazon has set the bar for package delivery. When Prime launched in 2005, two-day shipping was unheard of. By 2019, one-day shipping was standard for millions of items. Now, the retail giant is turning to generative AI to drive more same-day shipping. Amazon is using the technology to optimize delivery routes, make more intelligent warehouse robots, create more-ergonomic environments for employees and better predict where to stock new items, said Steve Armato, Amazon’s vice president of transportation technology and services. During an exclusive tour of Amazon’s largest California sort center, located in Tracy, Armato told CNBC that 60% of Prime orders in March were delivered the same day or next day in the top 60 metropolitan areas in the U.S. Amazon is betting on generative AI to increase that figure. “It seems subtle, but at this scale, getting just one more product in the right spot means that it’s shipping less distance when you order it,” Armato said in an interview at the warehouse. In 2020, Amazon began developing models for demand forecasting and supply chain optimization using transformer architecture, the backbones of what we know today as generative AI. “Generative AI is the next big evolution in technology,” Armato said. “It’s remarkable, and we’re already applying it in very practical ways across our operations.” But not all the changes that generative AI may bring to the e-commerce giant are positive. There are concerns about the high-energy needs of generative AI and about its ability to enable robots to replace Amazon’s human workforce, analysts told CNBC.

Full story : Amazon is using generative AI to drive more same-day shipping using smarter robots and better routes.