Amazon Now Employs Almost As Many Robots As People
The e-commerce giant uses robots in its warehouses and facilities to move products around, handle packages on a conveyor belt and assist human workers. Robot No. 1 million is now active at an Amazon facility in Japan, one of about 300 facilities where Amazon has started using robots, the company announced in a blog post.
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The company first started using robots in the warehouse in 2012, when it acquired Kiva Systems—which has since been renamed Amazon Robotics—for $775 million. Since then, it has iterated on its technology strategies, releasing robots that have a variety of form factors and use cases. Its latest and greatest is Proteus, an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) that can move through the warehouse without human intervention.
That it has reached one million deployed robots puts Amazon's technologically based workforce close to the number of human employees it has. The company is the U.S.'s second-largest private employer, and according to the Wall Street Journal, it employs more than 1.5 million people.
Now that those people—most of whom work in warehouses and fulfillment centers around the world—are moving alongside several different types of robots in the warehouses, the company has also unveiled a robot-wrangling system called DeepFleet, which it designed to coordinate the movement of robots within the warehouse. Because Amazon deploys robots with multiple form factors in some of its facilities, it's possible for them to block one another's paths or force each other to take less-efficient routes throughout the warehouse.
Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, said DeepFleet will reduce robots' travel times by about 10 percent.
'Think of DeepFleet as an intelligent traffic management system for a city filled with cars moving through congested streets,' Dresser wrote in a blog post detailing the upgrade. 'Just as a smart traffic system could reduce wait times and create better routes for drivers, DeepFleet coordinates our robots' movements to optimize how they navigate our fulfillment centers. This means less congestion, more efficient paths, and faster processing of customer orders.'
DeepFleet, like many of today's AI-based technologies, will only become more effective as it ingests further data and warehouse scenarios in real time, Dresser said.
While Dresser's blog post did not make it clear whether the two projects were interconnected, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced last year that they had been using deep-learning models to segment warehouse robots in an effort to control traffic and curtail accidents—and MIT disclosed that Amazon supported that project at the time.
According to Amazon, robots have a role in handling three-quarters of all customer orders globally. The company contends that in the process of building out its robotic fleets it has also upskilled more than 700,000 employees in an effort to prepare them for the future of work, which indubitably involves AI systems, robots and more. Still, in a memo last month, CEO Andy Jassy noted that the company will likely shed jobs because of the further proliferation of AI—and, in particular, generative AI.
The warehouse isn't the only terrain Amazon's testing emerging technologies in; it's also been bullish on bringing drones—and more recently, robots—to delivery sites. Amazon has Prime Air sites in Texas and Arizona, where it works to deliver small parcels to consumers' homes rapidly. It has beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) permissions from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its MK30 drones, which means the drones can travel autonomously beyond what its operator can see.
Last month, The Information reported that Amazon had started building a 'humanoid park' to test humanoid robots trained by AI to deliver parcels to consumers' homes. The idea is that, eventually, a humanoid would ride in the back of an Amazon truck and pop out to leave a package at a delivery site, easing the burden on the human driver.
Already, Amazon has been creeping up on competitors in the logistics sphere; added robotics and autonomous transport capabilities could continue pushing its ranking up. New data from the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Report shows that Amazon Logistics made greater gains than its competitors at UPS, USPS and FedEx in 2024. USPS saw a 3.2-percent uptick in parcel volume, while Amazon Logistics saw a 7.3-percent increase year on year. FedEx, meanwhile, saw its volume slip by 3.6 percent, and UPS held steady with 1.7-percent year-on-year growth.
Shemin Nurmohamed, executive vice president and president of sending technology solutions at Pitney Bowes, said such a trend is indicative of a shifting third-party logistics market.
'Since Pitney Bowes began tracking shipments a decade ago, the parcel market has been dominated by FedEx, UPS and USPS. We are witnessing a turning of the tide, evidenced by the nearly 40% volume growth in the five-year CAGR of 'Other' carriers. This disruption presents a unique opportunity for businesses to take advantage of competitive pricing,' Nurmohamed said in a statement.
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