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Amazon India
In a move to bolster its services in the Northeast, Amazon India has added a new route connecting Guwahati and Kolkata to its dedicated air cargo fleet, Amazon Air. Launched in 2023, the freighter service initially served Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. The expansion, expected to speed up shipments by 5x, will support deliveries across all seven sister states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura -- the company said in a statement. The inaugural Amazon Air flight to Guwahati was flagged off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, by Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu on Friday. "For sellers in the region, the introduction of Amazon Air services to Guwahati will enable enterprises to connect with customers nationwide. Improved fulfilment speeds will allow businesses to reach a wider customer base and participate more meaningfully in India's rapidly growing digital economy, while also bringing the ...
The one thing N. Lee Plumb knows for sure that being laid off from Amazon last week wasn't a failure to get on board with the company's artificial intelligence plans. Plumb, his team's head of "AI enablement," says he was so prolific in his use of Amazon's new AI coding tool that the company flagged him as one of its top users. Many assumed Amazon's 16,000 corporate layoffs announced last week reflected CEO Andy Jassy's push to "reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company." But like other companies that have tied workforce changes to AI - including Expedia, Pinterest and Dow last week - it can be hard for economists, or individual employees like Plumb, to know if AI is the real reason behind the layoffs or if it's the message a company wants to tell Wall Street. "AI has to drive a return on investment," said Plumb, who worked at Amazon for eight years. "When you reduce headcount, you've demonstrated efficiency, you ..