How Amazon Uses AI to Strengthen Human Rights Due Diligence

Amazon has started to implement AI models designed to pinpoint forced labour risks throughout its extensive supplier network.

Amazon is using technology to identify potential human rights issues. Its machine learning (ML) system sifts through millions of data points, including historical audits, government reports and news signals, to flag supplier sites that could be high-risk.

This allows Amazon to better prioritise its due diligence resources across a complex business that includes e-commerce, logistics, cloud services and manufacturing.

According to Kara Hurst, Amazon’s Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), the tool “successfully identified about 9 out of every 10 high-risk sites with 85% overall accuracy.”

In addition to this risk detection system, Amazon has created an AI tool that processes audit reports in minutes, a task that typically requires four hours of manual review. Kara explains that early versions helped process audit reports “65% faster: a remarkable difference.”

Operationalising human rights with AI

Amazon established its formal enterprise-wide human rights commitment in 2019, creating global principles aligned with the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, five years after publishing its first supplier code of conduct.

Leigh Anne DeWine, Amazon’s Director of Human Rights & Social Impact, explains to Devex that genuine progress has stemmed from putting those principles into practice through collaboration with individual business units.

She says Amazon transitioned from broad human rights assessments to constructing customised due diligence processes that reflect the unique risk profiles of different sectors. The retailer has also improved supplier transparency by publicly mapping its suppliers on the Open Supply Hub.

Last year, Amazon reported that it addressed 100% of the 826 complaints submitted through its human rights and environmental complaints form.

Tackling data fragmentation

Leigh Anne identifies data fragmentation as a major obstacle for businesses trying to improve human rights protections. She explains that human rights issues can often stay hidden because information is “incomplete, inconsistent or siloed across owners’ countries and systems.”

Without common data standards and trusted mechanisms for collaboration efforts, managing risk can remain isolated and reactive. A company might identify a problem in one facility but lack the means to act collectively or address issues further up the supply chain where many risks originate.

This issue led Amazon to join the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Data Partnership Against Forced Labour, an initiative aiming to speed up the responsible sharing of data between sectors.

Building coalitions to combat human trafficking

Amazon has also co-founded Tech Against Trafficking, a coalition that includes Google, Microsoft, Meta and TikTok. The group brings together industry, civil society, technologists and survivors to develop and scale technology-based solutions to combat human trafficking.

Amazon has provided technical expertise and AWS cloud solutions to support anti-trafficking NGOs. Another key partnership with the International Organization for Migration concentrates on improving ethical recruitment practices.

This work tackles issues such as worker-paid recruitment fees, deception and wage theft, all of which can be indicators of forced labour.

Despite the potential of AI in risk detection, Leigh Anne stressed that technology should be seen as a complement to human judgement not a replacement for it. She believes that “even the most advanced models are only as strong as the data behind them.”

Amazon’s human rights strategy focuses on strengthening its policy foundations, deepening business integration and advancing AI-powered risk insights.

As Amazon moves to decarbonise its operations, it also intends to ensure the transition is fair by integrating social factors into its environmental strategies.

Leigh Anne said progress will be clear when “the most vulnerable workers in global supply chains experience greater agency, safety and remedy.”