AMAZON WEB SERVICES

Amazon Web Services brings fulfilment centre tours at scale through virtual reality

Facing a four-week backlog of fulfilment centre customer tours, AWS used digital twin technology and Meta Quest to deliver a virtual reality tour experience – showcasing its technologies whenever and wherever.

THE RESULTS

On-demand access

AWS customers visit fulfilment centres for guided tours, offering them a look at how Amazon fulfils millions of packages daily.

The Amazon fulfilment centre virtual reality experience delivers an immersive, personalised experience of Amazon fulfilment centres accessible to customers worldwide. Four-week wait times for tours are now on-demand, through VR. In-person logistics, such as travel, is no longer a constraint. Customers are now considering how they can recreate the experience for their own industry.

20K+

tours made through the VR experience

10K+

customers reached via third-party events

The challenge

Amazon Web Services (AWS) serves a broad range of customers, from start-ups and small- to medium-sized businesses to large enterprises and government entities across all industries. They include businesses from retail, manufacturing, media and education. Many are interested in seeing AWS technology that powers Amazon up close, including Amazon's 175 fulfilment centres around the world.

AWS fulfilment centre tours feature live demonstrations of advanced technologies, including IoT applications for maintenance operations, AI-powered supply chain automation, generative AI solutions for enhancing customer service experiences and analytics platforms for real-time operational management.

However, not every business is located near a fulfilment centre and has the time to travel.

About the company

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. Millions of customers – including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises and leading government agencies – trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile and lower costs.

Industry

Technology

VR app interface showing recorded immersive training sessions.

WHY MR

Why Meta

AWS chose Meta Quest 3S for three reasons:

Immersion: AWS wanted to recreate an experience that was as close to a real fulfilment centre tour, virtually. The team found that Meta Quest headsets provided the best immersive experience for customers.
Ease of use: Simplicity was key for AWS. Meta Quest 3S meant that customers could quickly, seamlessly access its virtual experience on demand. The team plans on exploring Meta Horizon management solutions for single sign-on for its VR tour, as well as remote device management in future.
High-quality visuals and processing: High-definition resolution and fast GPU processing power helped to showcase AWS technologies.

Abhishek Srivastav,
Principal Solutions Architect at AWS

“

The quality and experience that Meta Quest headsets offer in terms of immersivity and interactivity for our customers is top notch. It helps our customers have a high-quality immersive experience on our tours.

The solution

To meet demand, AWS launched a VR tour. The Meta and AWS teams spent 18 hours scanning an 800,000 sq ft fulfilment centre, creating a digital twin using 3D spatial mapping technology from Matterport. They enhanced it with an immersive layer using the Treedis platform. "Our objective was to showcase the complete journey of a package enabled by AWS technology, starting from when it arrives from third-party sellers through to its delivery after a customer has placed an order on Amazon.com", says Abhishek Srivastav, Principal Solutions Architect at AWS.

To build a personalised, interactive experience, Meta and AWS leveraged generative AI using Amazon Bedrock. The entire tour was recorded live in person via green screen. Through voice commands powered by Amazon Nova Sonic, customers can navigate the tour and obtain in-depth information about every phase of fulfilment. For example, a manufacturing manager could experience a tour emphasising real-time reporting features, whereas an executive might delve into more comprehensive operational workflow details.

Finally, AWS chose Meta Quest to deliver its new virtual reality tour experience. Headsets are sent to customers. Just like in real life, they begin the experience by seeing a fulfilment centre from the entrance gate. Following a briefing in the training room, they walk to various points of interest at different stages of the fulfilment life cycle and get to see operations in vivid detail.

On-demand availability means that the virtual tour experience offers immediate access compared to month-long wait times for in-person tours.

Abhishek Srivastav,
Principal Solutions Architect at AWS

“

Meta Quest has helped us satisfy demand and make it easier for customers to experience our fulfilment centres. Customers can now enjoy a tour at their location, meaning that we've been able to scale to tens of thousands of people.

Get in touch with Meta for Work

You've seen how virtual reality is transforming work and learning – now take the next step. From enhancing training to scaling productivity,

contact sales

today to explore what's next for your organisation.