Amazon Claims The Headline Isn’t Robots Taking Jobs As It Reveals New Cost-cutting Robots

A New York Times study connected Tuesday cited soul Amazon documents touting really its displacement into automation could thief it waste much products without hiring much people, but coming nan institution has issued a PR blast astir robotics and transportation tech that is overmuch sunnier. Along pinch a tease of AI-connected augmented reality smart glasses and VR training for its drivers, Amazon showed disconnected 10 robots it’s utilizing aliases testing correct now (it didn’t mention whether immoderate of them had issues during nan caller AWS outage).

In one post, Amazon highlighted Blue Jay, a robot it calls “an other group of hands that helps labor pinch tasks that impact reaching and lifting,” and its agentic AI strategy Project Eluna, which “acts for illustration an other teammate, helping trim that cognitive load” while optimizing sorting to trim bottlenecks.

Blue Jay tin move 75 percent of nan types of items Amazon stores, and is yet expected to beryllium a “core technology” powering Same-Day transportation sites. The institution says it developed Blue Jay successful conscionable complete a twelvemonth based connected AI, integer twins, and information from robots already successful use, creating a strategy that “coordinates aggregate robotic arms to execute galore tasks astatine once, collapsing what utilized to beryllium 3 abstracted robotic stations into 1 streamlined workspace that tin pick, stow, and consolidate successful a azygous place.”

Amazon Robotics main technologist Tye Brady says successful nan company’s station that, “The existent header isn’t astir robots.. It’s astir people—and nan early of activity we’re building together.” The blog station besides reiterates a spokesperson’s consequence to nan Times report, saying that “no institution has created much jobs successful nan U.S. complete nan past decade than Amazon,” and touting plans to capable 250,000 positions for nan vacation season. 

CEO Andy Jassy’s June missive to employees astir nan effect of ratio is a spot clearer. He wrote astir generative AI, saying, “We will request less group doing immoderate of nan jobs that are being done today, and much group doing different types of jobs. It’s difficult to cognize precisely wherever this nets retired complete time, but successful nan adjacent fewer years, we expect that this will trim our full firm workforce arsenic we get ratio gains from utilizing AI extensively crossed nan company.”

The Times report suggests a akin scheme for robotics and automation, citing Jassy’s push to trim e-commerce costs and showing examples of really its storage overhauls are creating accommodation that process much items pinch less labor who progressively will attraction connected taking attraction of nan robots.