Latest news with #AdamWoodworth
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Walmart bringing drone delivery service to Atlanta
Next time you order something from Walmart, you may be able receive it through the air in just minutes, the retailer says. Walmart is expanding its drone delivery service to Atlanta through Wing, the big box retailer announced Thursday. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Walmart is expanding this service to 100 stores, including stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa. Customers in Atlanta can sign up on Wing's website to be notified when drone delivery becomes available in their area by visiting The service is currently available in northwest Arkansas and Dallas-Fort Worth. Wing operates within FAA guidelines, flying their drones Beyond Visual Line of Sight up to a six-mile aircraft range from the store. 'People all around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex have made drone delivery part of their normal shopping habits over the past year,' said Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing. 'Now we're excited to share this ultra-fast delivery experience with millions more people across many more U.S. cities.' TRENDING STORIES: National Donut Day: Where to get freebies to celebrate 'That's problematic:' Woman accused of taking money from homeowners instead of cutting down trees Legendary basketball coach in DeKalb accused of spanking players Walmart has completed more than 150,000 deliveries since launching the service in 2021. The company said drones can complete deliveries of groceries, household essentials, and health and wellness products in 30 minutes or less. Walmart said fresh fruit, eggs, ice cream and pet food are among the most delivered items. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Fast Company
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Fast Company
Walmart is planning a major expansion of its drone delivery service with Wing. Here's where it will land next
Our sky-mall future is officially here: Walmart and drone company Wing are rolling out drone delivery to a number of additional metro areas in what the companies are calling 'the world's largest drone delivery expansion' ever. The service will be available for Walmart customers in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa by mid-year 2026, the companies said Thursday. The announcement means that more than 100 Walmart stores in those cities will be folded into its Wing delivery partnership, including the 18 Supercenters in the Dallas area, where the two companies have already sent customer orders flying. 'Drone delivery is already real for millions of people in places like Dallas-Fort Worth, Wing CEO Adam Woodworth tells Fast Company. 'We're excited to make it real for more people than ever before.' Identified flying objects Business-to-consumer drone delivery still felt like far-off proposition not that long ago, but the market is poised to explode. A recent report from PwC estimated that $251 million worth of goods were delivered globally to consumers by drone last year, a number that could reach $65.2 billion in 2034. Walmart does not have the U.S. skies all to itself. Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, famously introduced the idea of drone delivery to American viewers on a 2013 episode of 60 Minutes, has set a goal of delivering 500 million packages a year via drone by the end of the 2020s. Walmart first launched drone delivery with Wing in fall 2023, and it works in a fairly simple way: Customers place an order with Walmart (or through Wing's marketplace, or a third-party service such as DoorDash), and select drone delivery, while specifying an exact delivery location. The drone is loaded up with a customer's order, takes off, and travels up to 65 miles per hour to the location. In all, customers can receive their orders much faster than through other delivery methods, as the drones can cut across the sky, avoiding traffic and other obstacles. 'We find drone delivery takes off in more densely populated areas where people rely on personal cars,' says Woodworth, such as sprawling cities like Dallas. 'Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida offer some of the same advantages Wing and Walmart have seen in Texas, with a real appetite from customers and government partners ready and excited to work with us and bring drone delivery to their communities.' Walmart's leadership is likewise excited about the expansion. 'As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail,' said Greg Cathey, Walmart's senior vice president of U.S. transformation and innovation, in a statement. 'We're pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before.'
TechCrunch
5 days ago
- Automotive
- TechCrunch
Walmart and Wing expand drone delivery to five more U.S. cities
Wing, the on-demand drone delivery company owned by Alphabet, is spreading its commercial wings with help from Walmart. The two companies announced Thursday plans to roll out out drone delivery to more than 100 Walmart stores in five new cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. Walmart is also adding Wing drone deliveries to its existing — and first market — in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The expansion signals Walmart's growing confidence in drone delivery. Greg Cathey, who is senior vice president of Walmart's U.S. Transformation and Innovation department, said drone delivery would remain a key part of its 'commitment to redefining retail.' 'We're pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before,' Cathey said in a blog posted Thursday. The expansion also marks a turning point for Wing, from Alphabet X graduate to commercial enterprise. Wing partnered with Walmart in 2023 and launched a pilot program to test on-demand drone delivery at two stores in the Dallas metro area that reached about 60,000 homes. It has since grown to 18 Walmart Supercenters in Dallas-Fort Worth. The expansion announced Thursday is nearly a five-fold increase of Wing's operations with Walmart. 'We're decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business,' Wing CEO Adam Woodworth told TechCrunch in a recent interview. 'We've always been the type of company that wants to do something well and stay focused. And so this is the next big bite at the apple. It's a much bigger bite than than we've taken before.' Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW Woodworth said the pilot program in Dallas-Fort Worth, and specifically how it scaled, helped form Wing's drone delivery strategy in the retail sector. 'We figured out how the expansion worked out and looked in DFW, and now we're sort of copy-pasting that across more markets,' he added. Woodworth wouldn't say whether Wing was profitable yet or when it would be. But he did say the company is focused on how to scale its deliveries while keeping its expenses in check. Wing's hypothesis is to build a business centered on small, lightweight, automated, low cost airplanes — aka drones. There are fixed operational costs tied to those physical assets such as flight operations and training. The crux, and what Wing is trying to navigate, is how to scale the number of drones and flights without adding even more personnel. 'The more places you can be operating, the more you can be flying, the more you can you can defray those costs. This is a meaningful step in that direction,' he said, adding that Wing is trying to keep its resources flat as the scale continues to go up. Wing is also pushing into the restaurant food delivery sector through its partnership with DoorDash. The two companies paired up in 2022 to launch drone deliveries in Australia and have since worked together in Dallas-Forth Worth and more recently in Charlotte.
Business Insider
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
The CEO of Walmart's drone partner says shoppers are ordering eggs to test the technology's handling
Baby wipes and eggs. Those are two of the top products Wing CEO Adam Woodworth says Walmart shoppers commonly order using his company's drone delivery service. "The baby wipes one makes total sense to me," he told Business Insider. "It's a problem when you run out." The reason for eggs' popularity was less obvious to him until he realized customers were most likely testing the technology's handling. "If you can get eggs delivered and they show up and they're not cracked, you can get pretty much anything delivered," Woodworth said. Millions more households will soon be able to try drone delivery, as Walmart and Wing announce their largest expansion yet. The companies said Thursday that they are bringing the service to 100 more US stores across metro areas, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa. They're also expanding in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, where the tech has been live for the past year and a half. Woodworth said drone delivery is proving popular in the areas where it is widely available. Thousands of customers are turning to the service each week to purchase everyday items like groceries or household supplies. "You're cooking dinner and you realize that the recipe called for scallions and you forgot to get them at the store," he said. (Walmart CEO Doug McMillon previously said he used the service to order last-minute cooking wine for dinner without leaving the couch.) Wing's drones have a payload of five pounds, which means they can carry about half of the 120,000 items typically found at a Walmart Supercenter. In other words, not a gallon of milk, which weighs eight pounds, but a quart to get you through the morning rush. Wing said the average delivery time is under 19 minutes. Woodworth said the company wants to get that down to 15. "Something where it would be way faster to get it delivered than to jump in your car and go drive to the store," he said. (For the parents waiting on baby wipes, that's about two episodes of "Bluey.") Americans have harbored their suspicions about delivery drones zipping around overhead (some have even shot at them, which is a felony). Woodworth said Wing does demos to get communities more comfortable with the idea. "The immediate reaction is that negative one," he said. "But over time, the questions go from the negative to 'Okay, well, when is it going to come to my house?'"
Chicago Tribune
7 days ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Children's Museum in Oak Lawn teams up for new birth to 5 resource hub
The Children's Museum in Oak Lawn has long been a resource for area parents looking for fun and educational experiences for their kids. Now they're taking that mission online and expanding it, teaming with other area organizations to host the Early Childhood Resource Hub. The Early Childhood Resource Hub, at helps parents of children up to age five find early intervention services, educational programs, health resources and other important support for those early years so vital to an individual's development. Other organizations that participated in developing the site, include Birth to Five Illinois, Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123 and its Early Learning program and the Illinois Resource Center. Birth to Five Illinois funded the project with a $12,500 grant, which covered its creation, design and a part-time staff person to manage the data. 'We've been doing a lot of work in early children with our Wee Ones program and it just seemed like kind of a natural fit for us to take the lead on it,' said Adam Woodworth, executive director of the museum, who added the Birth to Five Illinois Region 1-B-C Action Council had the resource hub idea in place when he joined that council about a year ago. Woodworth said parents might not know where to turn when they need help for their kids. 'I think everybody talks about getting ready for kindergarten and investing in these birth- to-five years before they get there,' Woodworth said. 'A lot of parents don't know where to go when they need help. 'There really hasn't been anything like this that has existed … it does now because we created it.' The museum and the other organizations involved are trying to get the word out and also let reputable young children's organizations know they can be listed on the web site. Ashonti Jackson, regional council manager for Birth to Five Illinois-Region 1-B-C, which supports all of south Cook County, said the new resource hub was sorely needed. 'Families and caregivers in Region 1-B-C have repeatedly shared their struggle with the lack of awareness and access to critical services,' Jackson said. 'Can you imagine how frustrating it is to search for help, only to be sent to two or three different places before finding the right support? 'The Resource Hub changes that. It brings everything into one centralized space, making it easier for families to get what they need and for community partners to connect, collaborate, and build a stronger support system that truly puts families first.' Christine Fuller, director of the Early Learning Center at District 123, who is also on the Birth to Five Forum of South Cook County, said she was one of several administrators who wanted to be sure parents had access to helpful resources in the region. 'I think this is very important because it continues to help families figure out where resources are in their community easily,' Fuller said. 'We know that over 90% of a child's brain is developed before age 5, so we need to make sure children are maximizing all the resources we have in our community.' Fuller said she knew finding the right help could sometimes be a cumbersome process. 'Ultimately it's a beautiful thing if families know where their local preschool is because then they don't have to jump through a lot of hoops to figure it out,' Fuller said. 'I hope it streamlines the experience of families struggling with where to go.' She also said the museum was a good place for the information. 'The Children's Museum is a very open, free-spirited and welcoming environment where children go to play,' Fuller said. 'When you're doing those things and it's like 'Oh, by the way, we have this resource — how great is that?'
