Delivering The Future
Over 100 journalists were in attendance at Amazon’s Delivering the Future held at its DUR3 delivery station in Milpitas, California, on October 22, 2025. According to a press release, the DUR3 delivery station has processed over 95 million packages since the facility’s opening in 2021. Over 400 jobs have been created at the facility, which doesn’t include delivery service provider drivers.
Each year, the tech-based company utilizes its annual event to announce its latest technological advances and updates on the company.
Like past years, Amazon made some major announcements, including the development of its smart delivery glasses, the Blue Jay and Project Eluna robotics and AI systems, and its sustainability goals. Carvd N Stone was in person to get the inside scoop. We spoke with Amazon spokespersons and the people behind the innovations.
Smart Delivery Glasses
In 2018, Amazon launched the Delivery Service Partner program, which uses technology to support its delivery associates’ experience. In its latest efforts to improve its delivery drivers’ experiences, Amazon announced the development of its smart delivery glasses. The smart delivery glasses have AI-powered sensing capabilities and computer vision technology to display real-time navigation and delivery instructions. The point of the glasses is to stop drivers from relying on their phones so they can focus more on their surroundings.
The smart delivery glasses inform the drivers about things like whether a dog is present at the household their delivering to, and allow drivers to take photos straight from the glasses.
The wearable technology is meant to provide a hands-free experience for the driver. The glasses are light like regular glasses, so they can feel natural on the drivers’ faces. Prescription lenses can be added to the glasses, and there’s a tint to protect the drivers’ eyes from blazing sunlight.
The glasses feature a small controller worn in the delivery vest that contains operational controls, a swappable battery ensuring all-day use, and a dedicated emergency button to reach emergency services along their routes. Currently, the glasses’ battery can last between five to eight hours.
According to Amazon VP, Geospatial and WW Hub Viraj Chatterjee, hundreds of Amazon drivers have tested the glasses with plans to roll the glasses out across Amazon networks. Chatterjee made it clear that Amazon will not make it mandatory for its drivers to wear the glasses; he said the glasses are meant to be a companion for the drivers.
“We’re hoping the product is so good that they want to use it,” said Chatterjee.
He added that the smart delivery glasses have endless possibilities. As the glasses are still in development, the team is thinking of new ways to improve the delivery experience, like alerting drivers in real time that they’ve dropped off a package at the wrong address.
“We want to give a great experience for the drivers,” said Chatterjee.
Aside from the glasses, a couple of weeks ago, Amazon started implementing its Day 1 Drive training, which is a hands-on experience to prepare drivers for real-world deliveries. A part of that program is the Slip, Trip, and Fall training, which puts drivers on a harness and has them walk through different environments while holding a package, so they know what to do in any environment, like when it’s raining.
The program also includes a driving simulation and delivering to fake houses, apartments, and businesses.
Meet Blue Jay and Project Eluna
In 2025, Amazon hit a new milestone by deploying 1 million robots across its networks. As the demand for online packages increases, Amazon is finding ways to become more efficient and take away repetitive tasks from its associates so they can focus on bigger ones. An example of this is the newly announced Blue Jay.
In just over a year, Amazon developed the robot Blue Jay to be an extra set of hands for its associates. The Blue Jay is a next-generation robotic system that coordinates multiple robotic arms to perform multiple tasks at once. Instead of having three separate robotic stations, Blue Jay has one streamlined workspace that can pick, sort, and consolidate in a single place.
Blue Jay is already being tested in production at an Amazon facility in South Carolina, where it’s able to pick, stow, and consolidate approximately 75% of all the various types of items Amazon stores at its sites. Eventually, the Blue Jay will be core technology to help power Amazon’s Sub-Same Day sites expansion to more than 4,000 communities. Sub-Same Day sites contain the most common everyday items like batteries, dog products, and diapers.
Another technological announcement from Amazon is Project Eluna. Project Eluna is an AI system designed to act with a degree of autonomy, reasoning through complex operational situations, and recommending actions to operators. In simple terms, it uses data to provide recommendations on how to stop bottlenecks before they become an issue.
Project Eluna will be piloted at a fulfillment center in Tennessee to assist operators this holiday season. According to a press release, operators can ask questions like, “Where should we shift people to avoid a bottleneck?” and receive data-backed recommendations.
To those who are worried about AI and technology taking away jobs, Amazon Director, Applied Science in Robotics and AI, Amazon Robotics, Aaron Parness, said this will only make workers’ lives easier.
“It’s not replacing the job, it’s taking away the mundane work,” said Parness.
Amazon’s Community Impact
Before the announcements of its new technological advancements, Amazon held a welcome reception at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank on October 21, 2025. Amazon is a partner of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, where they’ve invested in helping the food bank increase its efficiency, like creating a system to offer home-delivered groceries to those in need.
Through the partnership with Amazon, San Francisco-Marin Food Bank went from hundreds of deliveries to over 12,000 at its peak.
“We’re solving hunger together with Amazon,” said San Francisco-Marin Food Bank Executive Director Tanis Crosby. “That’s what Amazon brings to our community.”
Amazon Community Impact Director Bettina Stix founded Amazon’s disaster relief program in 2017 and was at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. Stix said it’s hard to work for a big company like Amazon and not constantly ask the question of how to provide more help when needed.
“Food security is on the rise…I think it’s a human thing to want to help,” said Stix. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”
She added that Amazon focuses on making a community better than it found it.
San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is not the only food bank Amazon has partnered with. Amazon has delivered more than 60 million free meals from food banks across the United States and the United Kingdom directly to families and individuals in need.
Amazon’s impact focus goes beyond food insecurity and into sustainability.
According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to the water use of a town with a population of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
On the main event day, Amazon Chief Sustainability Officer Kara Hurst acknowledged the high water usage associated with AI and announced that Amazon has a goal to return more water than it uses across its global data centers by 2030. She added that Amazon is over 50% of the way there.
Hurst said Amazon is committed to being sustainable and that involves sharing its findings with others and working with partners who have the same goals.
“We’re not gatekeeping these solutions,” and she added that making communities better should not be a competition.
