At Future Workforce, we’re delivering the AI solutions of the future. The logistics sector is the perfect place to do this, with processes to automate and enhance throughout the supply chain. In this article we’ll give an overview of the benefits of AI in logistics, then highlight areas where AI can improve last mile delivery.

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How to Improve Last Mile Deliveries with AI

AI comes in different shapes and sizes, each with their place in the supply chain. Last mile delivery can benefit from a number of them, including predictive AI and GenAI, to solve logistics challenges that either require significant human intervention or would otherwise be impossible to complete.

Here are the top six ways that AI can be used to improve last mile deliveries:

1.     Delivery Route Planning

Predictive AI enables even greater potential for planning delivery routes. It can create insights from a variety of data integrations, forming a plan based on how long deliveries are expected to take. This creates two main outcomes:

• Delivery routes can be optimised more easily
• Customers can more reliably know when their packages will arrive

These features of AI delivery route planning mean that your last mile delivery will be much more efficient through a greater understanding of the routes your drivers can take. Additionally, customers will have a better experience due to the accurate delivery times.

Delivery route planning also feeds into automated order batching, which we will cover a little later on.

2.     Real-Time Order Tracking

Keeping track of your parcels can be more complicated than it seems. The main purpose of this is to give customers an idea of where their packages are, so you need to integrate the tracking systems with the interface customers will use to monitor the delivery.

Passing large amounts of accurate information about every customer and every package is impossible for humans to do in real time, but AI solves this problem easily. It is able to adjust as new situations arise, accounting for changes in route or delivery time based on current conditions and predictive analysis.

Using AI to integrate your different order tracking systems creates a streamlined and responsive experience for you and for customers, building trust and ensuring they use your services again.

3.     Automated Order Batching

Efficient last mile delivery means grouping orders together in a process known as batching. This allows for packages in a generalised area to be delivered in a single trip from a delivery driver, meaning less trips need to be made overall.

While order batching is a great way to deliver more packages in less time, it can be a logistical nightmare – especially when you’re dealing with significant numbers of packages and customers over a wide catchment zone.

AI helps you to cut out the stress entirely, automating the process of order batching by analysing the most efficient groupings for your packages and assigning these to the appropriate drivers.

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4.     Resource and Cost Reduction

Many of the processes involved in last mile delivery are repetitive. From selecting the packages, to batching them together, to finding the best route for delivery, these processes will be repeated on end with only minor differences in each iteration.

AI can account for these differences, producing consistent and reliable results. While there is a cost of implementation for AI, you’ll soon find that it more than pays for itself. Processes that could have taken hours of human interaction can now be done automatically within seconds. This opens up a wealth of possibilities for your business, helping you to accelerate your growth with your newly freed-up resources while also supplying an excellent user experience.

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5.     Data-Driven Integrations

Dealing with enormous amounts of data in an efficient way is another key feature of AI, particularly with large language models (LLMs). These machine-learning algorithms can handle quantities of data that a human would either take days to sift through or be unable to entirely, and they do it within moments.

Being able to look at and analyse large amounts of data means that you can pinpoint the optimal locations to integrate AI into your supply chain. Whether that’s enhancing your inventory management systems or streamlining your last mile delivery process, AI can help you find patterns and capitalise on them to increase your business’ success.

6.     Customer Service Supported by GenAI

GenAI – or generative AI – is a massively successful form of AI that can generate a considered response to a user query. ChatGPT is a prime example of this, but other forms of similar GenAI have been used for years in commercial settings.

Chat bots are a prime example of this. Using GenAI to communicate with customers cuts down on the resources you have to spend dealing with surface-level inquiries. This also improves the customer experience by offering rapid responses that, with modern AI technology, feel genuine.

For last mile delivery in particular, GenAI customer service can ease any worries that customers might have about package status or delivery times. This creates a better experience for the customer while reducing the resources it takes for you to respond. For certain user queries, a human touch is needed, so using GenAI in tandem with a human support centre is often the best way to go.

AI Logistics Solutions from Future Workforce

Building your infrastructure to work with AI cuts costs, increases your efficiency, and futureproofs your operations for further developments down the line. With a host of applications and benefits for last mile delivery and logistics as a whole, now is the best time to start utilising AI.

Integrate AI into your last mile delivery with support from Future Workforce. We can help you at any stage of your AI adoption, accelerating your supply chain into its AI-fuelled future. Contact us today, or find out more about upcoming technologies by reading on.

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