Amazon Wants to be Everything to Everyone

Amazon is bolstering its e-commerce empire while continuing a march deeper into people's lives, from robots to healthcare and entertainment.
Innovations unveiled in recent days by the Seattle-based tech titan included a delivery van computer system to shave time off deliveries by its speed-obsessed logistics network, reported AFP.
Amazon Stores boss Doug Herrington said that the technology enables vans to recognize stops and signal which packages to drop off.
"When we speed up deliveries, customers shop more," Herrington said.
"For 2024, we're going to have the fastest Prime delivery speeds around the world," he added, referring to Amazon's subscription service.
On top of that, according to Herrington, Amazon last year managed to cut 45 cents off the cost per unit shipped, a huge savings when considering the massive volume of sales.
Prime is the 'glue'
Amazon last year recorded profit of more than $30 billion on revenue of $575 billion, powered by its online retail operation and its AWS cloud computing division.
"They have this whole flywheel model with Amazon Prime membership in the middle," said eMarketer analyst Suzy Davidkhanian.
"That's the glue that keeps everything together."
Businesses include retail, advertising, cloud computing and streamed movies and music.
But that very model has the 30-year-old company facing a US government lawsuit, accused of expanding an illegal monopoly and otherwise harming competition.
Amazon makes money from data gathered about consumers, either by targeting ads or through insights into what products they might like, Davidkhanian said.
That was why Amazon paid for expensive rights to stream NFL American football games on Prime Video in a move that promises to help it pinpoint fans of the sport.
Amazon's digital assistant Alexa can order items on command and has been even built into appliances such as washing machines to let them automatically buy supplies like laundry soap as needed.
A 'pocket pharmacy'
Amazon showed off enhancements to its virtual health care service called One Medical.
For $9 a month Prime members are promised anytime access to video consultations with health care professionals, along with record keeping and drug prescriptions.
An Amazon Pharmacy takes advantage of the company's delivery network to get prescriptions to patients quickly, striving for speeds of less than 24 hours for 45 percent of customers by the end of next year.
"We're building a pharmacy in your pocket that offers rapid delivery right to your door," Amazon Pharmacy chief Hannah McClellan said, referring to the option of using a smartphone app.
The healthcare market promises to be lucrative for Amazon, which is "trying to be the platform that has everything for everyone," said analyst Davidkhanian.
Real world wrinkles
Amazon has suffered setbacks when it comes to brick-and-mortar stores but it continues to strive for a winning strategy.
The company next year will open its first "automated micro warehouse" in Pennsylvania, next to a Whole Foods Market organic grocery shop, the chain it bought in 2017.
People will be able to pick up certain items selected online, with orders filled by robots, after shopping next door for fresh produce and groceries.
Meanwhile, Amazon is ramping up use of artificial intelligence at its online store with tools helping sellers describe and illustrate products.
Product labels will change according to the user, displaying terms likely to catch their attention such as "strawberry flavor" for some and "gluten-free" for others.
"The things that Amazon is doing with AI are to make sure that you go from researching something to making the purchase as quickly as possible," Davidkhanian said.
At the logistics center near Nashville, robotic arms deftly placed packages in carts that autonomously made their way to trucks.
Logistics center automation improves safety and frees up workers for more interesting tasks, according to Amazon robotics manager Julie Mitchell.
However, critics cite delivery speed pressure and other factors as making Amazon warehouses more dangerous than the industry average.

Google hopes to enter an agreement with Apple by the middle of this year to include its Gemini AI technology on new phones, CEO Sundar Pichai said in testimony at an antitrust trial in Washington on Wednesday.
Pichai testified in the Alphabet unit's defense against proposals by the US Department of Justice which include ending lucrative deals with Apple, Samsung, AT&T and Verizon to be the default search engine on new mobile devices, Reuters reported.
During questioning by DOJ attorney Veronica Onyema, Pichai said that while Google does not yet have an agreement with Apple to include its Gemini AI on iPhones, Pichai spoke with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the possibility last year.
A potential deal this year would see Google's Gemini AI included within Apple Intelligence, Apple's own set of AI features, Pichai said.
Google also plans to experiment with including ads in its Gemini app, Pichai said.
Prosecutors have sought to illustrate how Google could extend its dominance in online search to AI. Google maintained its monopoly in part by paying billions of dollars to wireless carriers and smartphone manufacturers, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year.
The judge is now weighing what actions Google should take to restore competition. The outcome of the case could fundamentally reshape the internet by potentially unseating Google as the go-to portal for information online.
The DOJ and a broad coalition of state attorneys general are pressing for remedies including requiring Google to sell off its Chrome web browser, banning it from paying to be the default search engine and requiring it to share search data with competitors.
The data-sharing provisions would discourage Google from investing in research and development, Pichai testified on Wednesday.
Provisions that would require the company to share its search index and search query data are "extraordinary," and amount to a "defacto divestiture of our IP related to search," Pichai said.
"It would be trivial to reverse engineer and effectively build Google search from the outside," he said.
That would make it "unviable to invest in R&D the way we have for the past two decades," Pichai added.
Google has said it plans to appeal once the judge makes a final ruling.

Amazon Wants to be Everything to Everyone