Amazon's AI specs aim to stop delivery drivers getting lost between van and porch

Why monitor staff through phones or cameras when Bezos' boxshifter can strap surveillance to their heads?

Amazon is testing AI-powered smart glasses to help its drivers get from their vans to customers' doorsteps.

The smart specs combine mounted cameras with computer vision and what Amazon calls "AI-powered sensing capabilities," which project turn-by-turn directions and delivery instructions directly into the driver's field of view.

The idea, Amazon said in an announcement, is to create a "hands-free experience" that reduces the need for drivers to repeatedly look between their phones, packages, and surroundings when making a drop-off. In practice, the hands-free part may be limited, given that packages still need to be carried to the customer's doorstep.

The glasses are part of a wider push, we're told, to thread AI through Amazon's last-mile delivery network, sitting alongside its expanding fleet of route-planning software, drones, and warehouse automation tools.

Once a driver parks, the glasses automatically activate, helping them with everything from finding the right parcel in the van to navigating apartment buildings and confirming the drop-off.

A small controller in the delivery vest houses the battery and buttons, including an emergency contact system. The glasses support prescription lenses and transitional lenses that automatically adjust to light.

Future iterations of the eyewear could detect when a parcel has been dropped at the wrong address, flag loose pets or trip hazards, or automatically adjust to low-light conditions.

The eyewear was developed under Amazon's $16.7 billion Delivery Service Partner program, which funds AI programs across its global network of drivers. The company says the tech was designed with feedback from hundreds of test drivers, with one saying they made him "feel safer the whole time" because the display kept information "right in my field of view." 

Skeptics might note the flip side: wearable cameras and continuous tracking built directly into a driver's line of sight. Amazon insists the aim is to make deliveries safer and more "seamless" – a term it uses a grand total of five times in its announcement.

Whether "seamless" also means "more easy to observe" is something delivery drivers may soon find out. ®