Amazon zeroes in on delivery speed, pursues greater AI ambitions
Dive Brief:
Amazon's initiatives to improve delivery speed are delivering results, according to CEO Andy Jassy on a Q2 2025 earnings call Thursday.
The number of packages delivered same day or next day to Amazon Prime members in the United States rose 30% year over year, according to Jassy. The company plans to expand same-day and next-day delivery to more than 4,000 smaller cities and communities by the end of the year.
Amazon is making progress on its AI ambitions as well. The retailer rolled out the Alexa+ generative AI assistant to millions of U.S. customers in early access, and the company plans on iterating on the experience, according to Jassy.
Dive Insight:
Speed of delivery plays an important role in driving Amazon's sales, but the company still has its eyes on AI's growing role in customer experience.
The digital retailer reported solid financial results with net sales up 13% year over year to $167.7 billion in the second quarter, according to a company earnings report.
Amazon thinks about its retail performance in terms of outputs — business metrics like revenue — and inputs — elements that matter to customers like product selection, price and delivery times — according to Jassy.
'But of course, you can't manage at the output level, it's the inputs that drive the outputs,' Jassy said during the call. 'So we spend virtually all of our time internally talking about and goaling against inputs.'
Amazon is working to improve delivery by placing inventory in locations closer to customers, which has speed and cost benefits, according to Jassy. The share of orders that go straight from fulfillment to delivery without extra stops rose 40% year over year, while the average distance traveled by packages was down 12%.
Automation and robotics are playing a role in better customer experience as well, according to Jassy. Investments include DeepFleet, AI that improves robot travel efficiency by 10%, which has improved delivery times among other benefits.
'This combination of robotics and generative AI is just getting started,' Jassy said.
Jassy also doubled down on his belief that AI technology will reinvent how customers interact with brands during the call.
'I think that AI is the biggest technology transformation for a lifetime, which is saying a lot because even in some of our relatively short lifetimes, we've been through the cloud, mobile and the internet itself,' Jassy said. 'But I think it's going to be the biggest transformation technically in our lifetime.'
He cited Alexa+'s ability to not just answer questions, but take action, as a major advancement over the earlier Alexa experience. The AI assistant is already capable of ordering groceries, and Jassy sees it playing a larger role in product discovery in the future.
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