For millions of shoppers, Amazon Prime Day is a coveted festival of discounted fare…from air fryers to Yankee Candles to ceramic butter boats to parachute pants. For Amazon, it’s one of the company’s most demanding workforce and operational stress tests. And for the HR and robotics teams, it’s all made possible by careful coordination and months of preparation.

Across its network of warehouses and fulfillment centers, the online retail giant prepares and aligns its people, technology, and systems for the annual surge in orders. Prime Day (which ran from June 23–26) has evolved into a carefully designed exercise of employee communication, training, and engagement, not to mention increasing human-robot collaboration.

“I think the first thing that we have to do is ensure that we’re all aware of what it is that we are going to be delivering, and that’s pretty clear to most Amazonians, because from day one we know we’re customer obsessed, and we work backwards from the customer,” Sandy Gordon, VP of employee experience and relations told HR Brew. “Our goal is to make sure that we’re always listening…The truth of this is that we’ve been working toward this for months.”

For more on the people, tech, and systems that make Amazon’s Prime Day possible, keep reading here.—AD

AI isn’t just changing how HR professionals lead. It’s overwhelming them with job applications, impacting their ability to find the right candidates for open jobs.

Where in the world? In the Middle East, 70% of employers have seen an influx of job applications thanks to AI, according to a recent survey from recruitment agency Robert Walters. It’s no wonder why: 65% of professionals use AI functions like chatbots and CV builders to help complete job applications, allowing them to apply to “dozens of roles” at once, People Matters reported. The trend is making it difficult for employers to determine whether applicants are a genuine fit or if they have “inflated profiles.”

Satellite view. Recruiters navigating this uptick in AI-generated job applications are also using AI to find and screening for the right candidates, HR Brew reported previously. As technology and the HR profession rapidly change, recruiters may ditch résumés and instead rely on skills assessments tools.

For more on how employers around the world are contending with the uptick in AI-generated job applications, keep reading here.—KP