Royal Mail’s depressing year was compounded with today’s £1bn loss, and while times look tough for the company, owned by International Distributions Services PLC, the boom of artificial intelligence (AI) may light the road to recovery.
The possibilities for what the current iteration of AI could achieve are endless, from holding a surface-level conversation to creating chart-busting music.
For businesses like Royal Mail, leaning into AI or diving headfirst may solve some, or all, of its problems – though its next chief executive will need to brace themselves for an almighty tussle with trade unions in a couple of years.
Supply chain management
Utilising technology in supply chain operations seems the apparent way adoption of AI can be used to drive performance, at least according to industry experts.
“The lessons for both the UK’s major carriers and the companies that choose to work with them is to be guided by an outcome-driven approach, using AI-generated insights to connect supply chain management with specific business objectives and consumer demand,” said Philip Ashton, CEO of 7Bridges, an AI-powered supply chain management platform.
Indeed, the benefits of AI in streamlining supply chains and deliveries are evident.
Tesco for example has used technology to develop a scheduling service that works out the best delivery slot based on location and basket size in less than half a second.
Quickening ‘simple’ tasks would go some way to meeting delivery targets and restoring its reputation.
Currently, Royal Mail staff spend up to two hours sorting mail, although under the agreement with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) agreed in April, this will be cut by up to 30 minutes.
Ashton goes further, adding that “innovative carriers across the globe” utilise AI to “fill in the gaps, provide complete data visibility and ensure they make outcome-driven decisions which keep the end consumer in mind.”
Automation can be used across route planning, delivery timelines and package tracking, he adds.
The implementation of AI across those services, which Ashton describes as “vital”, will no doubt be met with major resistance from employees.
Talk of AI rollout by companies rings the alarm bells that job cuts loom.
Take BT for example, which today said it would "digitise the way we work" – which seems like code for leaning further into AI – and just so happens to be cutting 40,000-55,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
The CWU, which represents roughly 115,000 posties, has shown it isn’t shy about dusting off the pickets and holding bosses accountable.
Royal Mail said it has no AI rollout plans at the moment, and that under the agreement with the CWU, there will be no compulsory redundancies until 2025 at which point this will be reviewed.
One can't help but think that by 2025, it will find itself at another crossroads with the union, just as last year they did after much-trumpeted previous agreements turned out to be flimsy sticking plasters.
AI seems an inevitable part of the future, with an ‘embrace the technology or be left behind’ attitude.
Adopting the technology at some point seems the obvious choice, but the CWU has shown it still has clout, and any wholesale changes will likely spark outrage that will give Royal Mail bosses more problems than solutions.
AI is extremely flawed and unreliable. Ask anyone who has been locked out of something like say their Facebook account and had to use AI to try and get back in
I thought, there speaks a person that had never worked a day in his life, what f g tit
