Amazon plans 5,000 smart glasses for delivery drivers this year

Amazon says it plans to put 5,000 smart glasses into use with delivery drivers this year and to reach more than 20,000 by the end of 2027. The figures come from Amazon's own newsroom page, first published Oct. 22, 2025 and updated Oct. 23, 2026. The wording is "We plan to deploy 5,000 devices this year, with a goal to expand to more than 20,000 by the end of 2027." Yahoo Tech, republishing Supply Chain Dive, carried the story on Nov. 4.

Those are targets. Amazon does not give a count of glasses in use today. It says more than 300 Delivery Service Partners, the small businesses that deliver packages to Amazon customers, and hundreds of their drivers have used the glasses since 2025.

What Amazon says the glasses do

According to Amazon's page, navigation and delivery instructions such as gate codes, access instructions and preferred drop-off locations appear in the driver's field of view on the walk to the door. The display also shows how many packages belong to a stop and confirms each one as it is selected from the van using the barcode on the label. Amazon adds that the glasses show a paw-print icon with an audio alert when delivery data indicates a pet may be present.

Amazon also says it moved the computing hardware and battery off the headset into a small controller worn in the delivery vest, after feedback from drivers. Retail Customer Experience reports that the glasses support prescriptions.

Amazon's account of the camera

Amazon's page makes these claims about the camera and its data:

• The camera captures still images only, "and there's no video or audio captured at all."
• No images are captured while driving between stops.
• Every image is automatically anonymized, with faces and license plates detected and blurred.
• Blurred images are encrypted and "automatically deleted after a short retention period." Amazon does not say how long that is.
• "No third parties ever process or review the imagery."
• Drivers have a dedicated privacy switch to turn the camera off, and wearing the glasses is "entirely optional."

A different account from Bloomberg's reporting

CNET, citing Bloomberg, describes the system differently. In that account the glasses capture static photos of everything in the driver's line of sight at a high frequency while the driver is on foot. CNET says "likely every few seconds" is its own estimate, not a figure from Amazon. It says the photos will be handed to Amazon employees for analysis and fed into Wellspring, Amazon's generative AI platform used to map neighborhoods. Amazon's page does not mention Wellspring.

CNET also reports that customers cannot see or ask to delete the images, that the only real way to pull them up is a warrant, and that Amazon's Chatterjee told Bloomberg customer opt-out options have not been considered. That last point is CNET's paraphrase.

Amazon spokesperson Leigh Anne Gullett disputed the reporting. According to CNET, she said "the suggestion that Amazon is using smart delivery glasses as a surveillance tool fundamentally mischaracterizes the technology and its purpose" and that participation is voluntary for delivery partners and drivers. In the text CNET quotes, her objection is to the surveillance characterization, not to each detail. We have not opened Bloomberg's original piece.

What Amazon has not said

• The glasses. The maker and model are not named on the page we read.
• Capture rate. Amazon gives no figure for how often the camera takes images.
• Who sees the images. Amazon says no third parties review them. It has not addressed, in what we read, whether Amazon employees do.
• Retention. The "short retention period" has no length.
• Bystanders. The page covers blurring faces and plates. It says nothing about notifying people on the street or at the door, or about letting them opt out.
• Driver monitoring. Amazon's page does not address whether the glasses or their data touch drivers' pace, pay or discipline. CNET notes Amazon vans already use cameras and sensors to monitor driving habits and cabin behavior.
• Where. The page names only Omaha, Nebraska, as a driver's location, so the countries covered are unclear.

What it means for drivers and people at the door

Drivers work for Delivery Service Partners, not directly for Amazon, as Amazon describes the network. We found nothing on how those employers set rules about wearing the glasses on shift, so "optional" is Amazon's word and not a policy we can describe in detail.

For people on the receiving end, the open question is what happens to images of them. Amazon says faces are blurred, and the Bloomberg-based account describes wide capture with no opt-out. Both can be true of different stages. Until Amazon publishes more, the retention period, the human review question and the opt-out question stay unanswered.

Camera glasses at work are a policy question beyond Amazon. We covered an ICE memo that treats Meta's camera glasses as personal body-worn cameras that cannot be worn in federal workplaces. Our guide to where smart glasses are banned shows that many venue rules name cameras or recording devices instead of smart glasses.

We will update this piece if Amazon names the glasses or answers the retention and review questions.