Postal Service Mail Carriers

On the delivery side, letter carriers still do the final steps by hand. Carriers physically sort each route’s mail and walk or drive it to homes and businesses. They use handheld scanners and routing software (like the USPS’s Address Management and Routing systems ^{[5] [5]}) to record deliveries and track packages.

Even so, getting signatures for registered mail, dealing with address changes, and talking with customers remain human tasks. As one postal audit noted, public perception of delivery robots is generally positive but such technology isn’t mature enough yet – carriers still “deliver” the mail ^{[3] [3]}. In short, AI today augments postal work (making sorting and logistics faster) but does not replace the carrier’s person-to-person delivery work.

But adoption is also slow for practical and social reasons. A full AI system requires expensive new machines and specialist staff (the USPS had to buy high-end servers and GPUs, and train engineers to run them ^{[2] [1]}). Meanwhile, mail carriers are covered by union contracts and safety rules, and many delivery tasks (knowing neighborhood quirks, responding to emergencies, or simply greeting people) demand a human’s judgment and flexibility.

Concerns about mail privacy and trust also mean any AI must be carefully designed. Experts in logistics emphasize that AI usually augments rather than replaces workers ^{[8] [3]}. In short, postal officials see AI as a tool to help mail carriers do their jobs better (making routes more efficient or sorting faster), not as a way to eliminate those jobs.

Over time we’ll likely see more AI in sorting and planning, but human carriers – with their knowledge of routes and people – will still be essential.