Starship Ventures raised another 90m for their autonomous delivery robots, prompting polarising comments from all angles and showing that the ubiquitous problem of last mile complexities, inefficiencies, and subsequent high costs is being looked at by everyone from logistics giants like Amazon to the WEF, and down to us ‘not-quite-use-case-but close-enough’ startups.
Naturally, AI is being hailed as the new saviour and I'm certain it will transform and improve the market. But should every moped driver, courier and removal person hang up their gloves just yet…?
Honestly, if I was an Uber driver I'd be a bit worried. Driverless cars are coming. Elon says this year, but he's said that for the last 6 years. It's definitely coming though.
'I very frequently get the question: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?'… I almost never get the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' - Jeff Bezos
For Relōku's use-case, we've focussed on building AI-based tech for things like real-time predictive resource allocation because although dynamic variables are potentially infinite, the essence can be reduced to a finite algorithmic system, ie. this many vehicles, that many clients, X many jobs within 24 hours.
And that's not to say it's easy (it's REALLY hard even at niche level) but it will be cracked, macro scale. And many use-cases will be cracked with it…. food delivery, small parcels, groceries, essentially any 'basic' doorstep delivery.
But what WON'T change?
Well, ‘human’ things… like ingenuity and abstract problem solving in variable situations, or personableness, empathy and likeability. In fact, they'll likely be more highly prized and sought after.
I mean, until a robot can kick a box over a locked gate or ‘hide’ it in a used bin without trying the doorbell we're all safe, right? (I'm joking you courier guys, JOKING)…
But this is the key part. The devil is in the detail. Edge-cases cause the problems - and in removals abnd delivery there's a lot of edge cases.
We had many debates about launching with an MVP, the classic Silicon Valley ‘move fast and break things’ philosophy. I'm sure you can see how that's not a great mantra for a removal company.
So we pushed development on for another 7 months factoring in things we knew from experience could happen, but are not typical.
They ALL happened in the first 4 months since we launched. And way more we hadn't factored in.
But when computer said no, human said yes. The devs did a tweak here and a hack there, Mark and I got on the phone to clients, and we were vindicated for all that time spent sifting through hundreds of applications to find the very best drivers as they figured out solutions on the fly while smiling and keeping clients happy. All 5 star reviews and nice tips.
But before I sound like I'm doing a post worthy of parody by these guys, there were no standing ovations or high-5's. It's just what is expected from premium companies.
And that's the point really. AI will solve a myriad of logistical stuff but there are intricacies and subtleties that are uniquely human.
And frankly until these things can carry a fridge up a narrow staircase without scraping a wall, I think many of us will be OK. For now…..
