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.
Robots and new roles
The number of Amazon warehouse robots grew from 350,000 in 2021 to more than 750,000 in 2023, according to the company.
Amazon began adding AI transformer models to its warehouse delivery robots in 2022 so the machines can dash around each other more intelligently. CNBC watched hundreds of them move in a coordinated grid in the warehouse. Armato calls this “the dance floor.”
“Some of the two-day deliveries might stand aside, let the robot with a next-day delivery go on its mission first and take a straight line to its destination,” Armato said.
Hundreds of robots dash around each other with the help of generative AI at Amazon’s largest California sort center in Tracy, California, July 31, 2024.
Lisa Setyon
While these robots navigate using a series of QR codes, Amazon’s next generation of drive units, called Proteus, are fully autonomous, the company said.
“They’re using generative AI and computer vision to avoid obstacles and find the right place to stop,” Armato said.
As part of the company’s AI strategy, Amazon in August struck a deal with AI startup Covariant. Amazon hired the startup’s founders and licensed its models that help robots handle a wider range of physical objects. Amazon is also developing a bipedal robot called Digit that can grasp and handle items in a humanoid way.
CNBC saw a row of 20 robotic “Robin” arms that use computer vision to determine how much pressure to use when picking up various package shapes and sizes. Amazon said generative AI teaches the arms how to handle products they’ve never seen before based on data from similar products in Amazon’s vast catalog.
A similar model is used to better assess damaged items and keep them from shipping out. Amazon’s AI is three times better at identifying damaged products than humans are, the company said.
Introducing more robotics with generative AI without replacing human workers is a balancing act for Amazon, said Tom Forte, senior equity analyst at the Maxim Group.
“How can they implement automation to improve efficiency and manage labor expenses, but how can they do it in a way that complements their use of humans and doesn’t replace them?” Forte said.
Rather than replacing workers, the robots are reducing the burden on employees and creating new roles, Armato said. Amazon said it plans to spend $1.2 billion to upskill more than 300,000 employees by the end of 2025 as generative AI and robotics change the company’s processes.
“Someone needs to maintain [the robot] if it breaks down,” Armato said. “Or if something does get dropped on the dance floor, we have a process and special training to go clean that up. And so each of those creates new categories of jobs, some of which have higher earnings potential.”
Many of Amazon’s robots move tall bins of items to workstations where employees pick and pack them, which reduces how much humans have to walk, Armato said. AI is also reducing the need for workers to reach and bend, he said.
“One algorithmic improvement is to take our faster-selling products and place those on the shelves at waist height,” Armato said. “That’s your ergonomic power zone.”
Robotic drive units bring tall stacks of items to workstations for picking and packing at an Amazon same-day center in Richmond, California, Aug. 31, 2024.
Katie Tarasov
Predicting orders and routes
With all those robots and workers, Amazon delivered more than 2 billion items the same day or next day in the first quarter of 2024, according to the company.
Amazon has always used algorithms to predict how much of what inventory is needed, when and where. The company said it’s using generative AI to predict where best to place items it hasn’t previously sold.
“When we place a product in the right place ahead of time, before you click buy, it’s traveling less distance, which is a win for speed and sustainability,” Armato said.
Amazon Web Services has data centers filled with servers running AI workloads that give the company an edge over its retail rivals because it can train its AI in-house. As an early online-only retailer, Amazon got a head start on collecting mass aggregate data on shopping behavior and delivery logistics. Amazon is now using that trove of data to create AI models for use in everything from supply chain optimization to warehouse robotics, according to the company.
“It’s not that Walmart and Target and Costco and others don’t have their own reams of data, but they’re looking at things a little bit differently, and they have much older systems,” said Sucharita Kodali, retail analyst at Forrester Research.
How eco-friendly generative AI will be in the long run is unclear. That’s because training and running generative AI is a carbon-intensive process, and by 2027, AI servers worldwide are projected to use as much power every year as Sweden or the Netherlands.
That’s in conflict with Amazon’s 2019 commitment to reach net-zero carbon by 2040.
The company claims that the use of AI is helping cut down the carbon footprint of package delivery. Amazon is reducing carbon by using more than 20 machine learning models to improve mapping for its vast network of 390,000 delivery drivers, predicting road closures and choosing more efficient routes, the company said.
Beyond its warehouses, Amazon has also introduced generative AI to help its sellers and shoppers.
Additionally, Amazon said, it has invested $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, which makes chatbot Claude, a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Amazon also makes its own AI-focused microchips and its own generative AI tools for developers, which it also uses in operations, the company said.
Whether Amazon’s huge investment in generative AI will translate to profits remains an open question.
“I have yet to see huge lift in anybody’s retail business due to generative AI, including Amazon,” Kodali said. “I think a lot of their biggest impact has happened because of the earlier investments, not necessarily some of these more recent investments.”
Amazon’s new MK30 Prime Air drone is displayed during Amazon’s “Delivering the Future” event at the company’s BFI1 Fulfillment Center, Robotics Research and Development Hub in Sumner, Washington on Oct. 18, 2023.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
Amazon is facing a federal probe after one of its delivery drones downed an internet cable in central Texas last week.
The probe comes as Amazon vies to expand drone deliveries to more pockets of the U.S., more than a decade after it first conceived the aerial distribution program, and faces stiffer competition from Walmart, which has also begun drone deliveries.
The incident occurred on Nov. 18 around 12:45 p.m. Central in Waco, Texas. After dropping off a package, one of Amazon’s MK30 drones was ascending out of a customer’s yard when one of its six propellers got tangled in a nearby internet cable, according to a video of the incident viewed and verified by CNBC.
The video shows the Amazon drone shearing the wire line. The drone’s motor then appeared to shut off and the aircraft landed itself, with its propellers windmilling slightly on the way down, the video shows. The drone appeared to remain in tact beyond some damage to one of its propellers.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, a spokesperson confirmed. The National Transportation Safety Board said the agency is aware of the incident but has not opened a probe into the matter.
Amazon confirmed the incident to CNBC, saying that after clipping the internet cable, the drone performed a “safe contingent landing,” referring to the process that allows its drones to land safely in unexpected conditions.
“There were no injuries or widespread internet service outages. We’ve paid for the cable line’s repair for the customer and have apologized for the inconvenience this caused them,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC, noting that the drone had completed its package delivery.
The incident comes after federal investigators last month opened a separate probe into a crash involving two of Amazon’s Prime Air drones in Arizona. The two aircrafts collided with a construction crane in Tolleson, a city west of Phoenix, prompting Amazon to temporarily halt drone deliveries in the area.
For over a decade, Amazon has been working to realize founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of drones whizzing toothpaste, books and other goods to customers’ doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. The company began drone deliveries in 2022 in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California.
But progress has been slowed by a mix of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and layoffs in 2023 that coincided with broader cost-cutting efforts by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
The company has previously said its goal is to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade.
The hexacopter-shaped MK30, the latest generation of Amazon’s Prime Air drone, is meant to be quieter, smaller and lighter than previous versions.
Amazon says the drones are equipped with a sense-and-avoid system that enables them to “detect and stay away from obstacles in the air and on the ground.” The company recommends that customers maintain “about 10 feet of open space” on their property so drones can complete deliveries
The company began drone deliveries in Waco earlier this month for customers within a certain radius of its same-day delivery site who order eligible items weighing 5 pounds or less. The drone deliveries are supposed to drop packages off in under an hour.
Amazon has brought other locations online in recent months, including Kansas City, Missouri, Pontiac, Michigan, San Antonio, Texas, and Ruskin, Florida. Amazon has also announced plans to expand drone deliveries to Richardson, Texas.
Walmart began offering drone deliveries in 2021, and currently partners with Alphabet’s Wing and venture-backed startup Zipline to make drone deliveries in a number of states, including in Texas.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) sports day event in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025.
Lam Yik Fei | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Shares of artificial intelligence czar Nvidia fell 2.6% on Tuesday as signs of unrest continued rippling through its kingdom.
Over the month, Nvidia has been contending with concerns over lofty valuations and an argument from the “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry that companies may be overestimating the lifespan of Nvidia’s chips. That accounting choice inflates profits, he alleged.
The pressure intensified last week in the form of a potential challenger to the crown. Google on Nov. 18 announced the release of its new AI model Gemini 3 — so far so good, given that Nvidia isn’t in the business of designing large language models — powered by its in-house AI chips — uh–oh.
And on Monday stateside, Meta, a potential kingmaker, appeared to signal that it is considering not just leasing Google’s custom AI chips, but also using them for its own data centers. It seemed like Nvidia felt the need to address some of those rumblings.
The chipmaker said on the social media platform X that its technology is more powerful and versatile than other types of AI chips, including the so-called ASIC chips, such as Google’s TPUs. Separately, Nvidia issued a private memo to Wall Street that disputed Burry’s allegations.
Power, whether in politics or semiconductors, requires a delicate balance.
Remaining silent may shroud those in power in a cloak of untouchability, projecting confidence in their authority — but also aloofness. Deigning to address unrest can soothe uncertainty, but also, paradoxically, signal insecurity.
For now, the crown is Nvidia’s to wear — and the weight of it is, too.
What you need to know today
And finally…
Lights on in skyscrapers and commercial buildings on the skyline of the City of London, UK, on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. U.K. business chiefs urged Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves to ease energy costs and avoid raising the tax burden on corporate Britain as she prepares this year’s budget.
The run-up to this year’s U.K. Autumn Budget has been different from the norm because so many different tax proposals have been floated, flagged, leaked and retracted in the weeks and months leading up to Wednesday’s statement.
It has also made it harder to gauge what we’re actually going to get when Finance Minister Rachel Reeves finally unveils her spending and taxation plans for the year ahead.
Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach, right, walks to the morning session during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 11, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Workday shares slid more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after the finance and human resources software maker issued quarterly margin guidance that came in below Wall Street projections.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $2.32 adjusted vs. $2.18 expected
Revenue: $2.43 billion vs. $2.42 billion expected
The company forecast a fourth-quarter adjusted operating margin of at least 28.5% and $2.355 billion in subscription revenue, according to a statement. The StreetAccount consensus was a 28.7% margin and $2.35 billion in subscription revenue.
Workday’s revenue grew about 13% year over year in the quarter, which ended on Oct. 31. Net income of $252 million, or 94 cents per share, was up from $193 million, or 72 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
Subscription revenue in the third quarter totaled $2.24 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 28.5%. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had anticipated $2.24 billion in subscription revenue and a 28.1% margin.
During the fiscal third quarter, Workday announced artificial intelligence agents for analyzing employee performance testing financial health, and the company revealed plans to buy AI and learning software startup Sana for $1.1 billion. Also, activist investor Elliott Management said it had built a Workday stake worth over $2 billion.
Workday has seen its stock decline this year as pundits discuss the risk of generative AI tools threatening the growth prospects for cloud software incumbents. Company shares have fallen 9% so far in 2025, while the Nasdaq Composite index has gained 19%.