Damaged Products No More! Amazon To Inspect Shipments With AI

Amazon is implementing artificial intelligence to identify damaged and defective products before shipping them to customers. The company will use an imaging station with AI technology during the picking and packing process at its warehouses. Currently workers manually inspect products for damage which is time-consuming and inefficient.

The AI system is three times better at spotting damaged products compared to human workers, according to an Amazon manager. The AI was trained using a dataset of undamaged and damaged product images to learn the differences. During operations, products travel through the imaging station where the AI flags any damaged items. A worker then visually inspects any flagged products and approves undamaged ones for packing and shipment.

The aim of using AI is to improve warehouse efficiency, reduce physical strain on workers and address labor shortages. The technology will also minimize the number of damaged products shipped to unsatisfied customers which affects Amazon's reputation. Amazon has already started AI inspections in two warehouses and plans to expand it to ten more locations this year.