Amazon will soon have more robots than human employees working in its warehouses.
The retail giant has long been increasing automation for tasks once completed by humans.
As a result it now has more than one million robots in its workplaces, according to the company’s own data.
This new record is nearing the amount of human workers in its facilities, and will soon surpass them.
Amazon’s enormous warehouses are now staffed with large plucking ‘robots’ that can pick up and move packages with their long metallic arms.
Other robots are used to pack products into packaging and to help with sorting.
A new robot named Vulcan has been introduced, equipped with a tactile sensing ability that allows it to identify various objects on shelves, as mentioned by the Wall Street Journal.
Amazon’s recent strategy involves integrating these robots with their order-fulfillment systems, enabling collaboration between machines and humans to perform tasks efficiently, the report states.
Amazon now has more than one million robots in its workplaces
‘They’re one step closer to that realization of the full integration of robotics,’ robot analyst Rueben Scriven told the Journal.
Currently around 75 percent of Amazon’s deliveries are helped by a robot at some point on their journey.
Amazon claims this has been one of the main factors behind their improved productivity.
It also helps solve issues such as high staff turnover at its fulfilments centers, the retail giant said.
It has also freed current staff from some repetitive and cumbersome tasks such as heavy lifting.
‘I thought I was going to be doing heavy lifting, I thought I was going to be walking like crazy,’ Amazon employee Neisha Cruz told the Journal.
Cruz spent five years picking items at an Amazon warehouse in Windsor, Connecticut, but was then trained to oversee the new robotic systems.
Cruz now earns more than double the pay she started on and is able to work behind a computer rather than on her feet.
There will soon be more robots in Amazon workplaces than human employees
Around 75 percent of Amazon’s deliveries are helped by a robot at some point on their journey
Amazon boss Andy Jassy warned that AI will lead to job cuts
However, the robots are also replacing jobs and slowing hiring at the company which currently employs 1.56 million people, mostly in warehouses.
This development follows remarks from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who indicated that the greater use of AI will lead to a reduced workforce in the coming years.
‘As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done,’ Jassy wrote in a memo to staff last month.
‘It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce,’ he explained.
And Amazon is not alone.
Last month Microsoft also said is planning to cut thousands of jobs as it ramps up investments in AI.
The cuts, which will hit sales roles in particular, are part of a broader effort to streamline the company’s workforce, according to Bloomberg.
The layoffs are expected to be announced early next month, following the end of the tech giant’s fiscal year, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
In June Procter & Gamble, which makes diapers, laundry detergent, and other household items, also announced it would cut 7,000 jobs, or about 15 percent of non-manufacturing roles.
Americans are growing increasingly concerned about the impact of AI on the jobs market.
The tech is continuing to upend the jobs market with white collar entry-level jobs disappearing fastest and layoffs in tech, finance and consulting gathering pace.
