“Specifics will vary by DSP and geography, as each DSP determines how best to invest in their business and teams,” Amazon wrote on Monday. That sentence sits four lines below the headline figure, which is that drivers will earn a national average of nearly $24 an hour.
Amazon said it will put another $1.9bn into its Delivery Service Partner programme in 2027. The announcement came at Ignite Live, the company’s annual DSP conference in Las Vegas.
Amazon pays the DSPs. The DSPs employ the drivers and set their wages. Amazon’s own word for what the money will do to pay is “anticipate”.
The pay figures, and what they rest on
Amazon said its investments over the past three years will have helped DSP owners raise driver pay by an average of 16% nationwide. National average earnings rise by roughly another $1 this year. That takes them to nearly $24 an hour.
For comparison, the company’s own DSP programme explainer, published in January 2024, anticipated a national average of nearly $22 an hour. It described that as a 7% rise on the year before.
The release puts total investment in the programme at $21.7bn across its eight years. The 2024 explainer gave the figure then as more than $12.3bn.
Amazon said all DSPs provide healthcare coverage and paid time off for full-time delivery associates. Many also offer 401(k) plans and tuition reimbursement. Those, it said, are decisions DSP owners make as employers.
What the safety spending has bought
Serious vehicle crashes fell more than 23% across the network last year, according to the company. It said it has spent more than $543m on safety since 2022.
Amazon has made a claim like this before. Its January 2024 programme explainer said in-vehicle camera technology had cut accident rates by 48% across the US network since rolling out in 2020. The same page reported a 93% drop in distracted driving and a 90% fall in speeding among DSPs using it.
New surround-view cameras identify vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians from every direction. They then notify the driver. Amazon expects them in half of its Rivian electric vans by the end of this year.
The Amazon Delivery App is getting hazard alerts for accidents, road closures and construction. Navigation will reroute on its own in bad weather, without the driver doing anything.
The coaching layer
Netradyne’s in-vehicle cameras already run across the network. Amazon said it is now applying more advanced AI to spot driving patterns more likely to end in a crash.
Those insights go to the DSP owner, not only to the driver. The stated purpose is early coaching.
The OECD calls this category algorithmic management. Its survey of 6,047 firms across six countries found US employers use software to sanction workers at sixteen times the European rate.
Wellspring, and the map being built by delivery
Amazon calls its generative AI mapping system Wellspring. It learns from every trip and builds a model of the physical world as it goes.
Since 2024 it has identified 202 million parking locations. It has mapped 2.8 million building entrances and catalogued 85,000 mailrooms and lockers.
Separate AI routing adjusts for real conditions: less visibility after sunset, or the extra minutes a downtown stop needs to find parking at lunchtime.
20,000 pairs of glasses by the end of 2027
Amazon introduced its Smart Delivery Glasses last year. It designed them with input from hundreds of delivery associates. Computer vision puts navigation and delivery details in the wearer’s line of sight, so they are not looking down at a phone.
New features include an LED headlamp, hands-free scanning and proactive address verification. Amazon expects more than 20,000 of the devices in the field by the end of 2027.
Most smart glasses coverage this year has concerned people in front of the camera. Paris prosecutors opened a criminal probe into smart glasses this month. Amazon’s are a workplace device, worn on shift. The release says nothing about what they record, or how long anything is kept.
The community money
Amazon is committing $70m over five years to community work led by DSP owners. Part of it goes to Amazon Local Good, which moves donated goods for nonprofits at no cost to them.
In 2025, DSPs on that programme ran 4,800 routes and distributed more than 8 million essential items and 4 million meals. Amazon expects to move more than 150 million items over the next five years.
A separate campaign, Together We Give Back to School, has DSP owners donating more than a million school supply items. Amazon said it reaches over 100,000 students and 1,000 teachers.
What the announcement does not say
Amazon gives no base year for the 16% pay rise. Without one, the figure cannot be checked against a starting point. It gives no regional breakdown and no floor. The $24 is a national average that DSP owners are anticipated to reach, not a rate Amazon sets.
There is no driver headcount, no DSP count and no figure for how many drivers currently earn above or below the average.
On safety, the 23% fall is Amazon’s own measure of its own network, with no absolute numbers behind it and no external audit cited.
The release does not say what the Netradyne cameras and the glasses collect. It does not say how long footage is held. It does not say whether a driver can see what their DSP owner sees about them.
Amazon has been expanding last-mile delivery on several fronts at once. Its drone fleet is expanding sixfold across 500 cities. It moved Canadian sourcing last month. And Volkswagen is now Rivian’s biggest shareholder, which is the company building the vans the new cameras go into.
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