Even though it’s still early days, logistics providers report that AI and automation are already yielding material productivity gains. ‘When it comes to operations, we can track everything, we have digital scan gloves for easy scanning and with robotisation, we can process 1.5 million parcels a week with just 45 people,’ says Eeuwe Kamsteeg of PostNL.

It’s not just in the warehouse, however, that AI is making an impact. Many expect predictive intelligence to help tackle the challenging areas of last mile delivery and out of the home delivery, by drawing on real-time data flows and heavy-hitting analytics to continually calibrate routes, respond to last minute customer changes and provide smarter batching of orders. Already, as reams of data flow through analytics platforms, deliveries are becoming intelligent, creating opportunities to delight parties at both ends of the transaction. A parcel being sent from a Spanish warehouse to a customer in Germany, for example, no longer follows a static route but is instead tracked and optimised on an individualised parcel basis, with decisions continually updated based on a wide range of variables, including the consumer’s behaviour and preferences.

This level of intelligent real-time routing requires a lot of data, and that in itself can be a challenge for supply chains that rely on many different parties, each with their own fragmented data sets and legacy systems, to fulfil a delivery.