Amazon Plans to Build Big-Box Store Near Chicago

Amazon reportedly plans to open a big-box store comparable to a Walmart or Target location in a Chicago suburb.

The 229,000-square-foot facility would sell groceries, general merchandise and prepared foods, Bloomberg reported Friday (Jan. 9).

Amazon is seeking approval for the project and could begin construction later this year, according to the report.

“We regularly test new experiences designed to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, including physical stores,” an Amazon spokesperson said in the report. “The site in question is our planned location for a new concept that we think customers will be excited about.”

Amazon also reportedly aims to make inroads with the wearable “ambient AI” device it added when it acquired artificial intelligence hardware startup Bee in September.

The company aims to make the device more proactive by performing tasks like drafting emails and creating meeting invites, and it wants to make it one of consumers’ everyday accessories by adapting to their individual style, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing its interview with Bee co-founder Maria de Lourdes Zollo.

“I believe that there will [be] an escalation of accessories that we have Bee on,” Zollo said in the report. “We want to be with you, and we understand you have your own sense of fashion, so we want to understand what is good for you.”

PYMNTS reported Monday (Jan. 5) that Amazon shared new details about Bee at CES 2026 in Las Vegas and that the company is positioning the wearable as a personal AI companion.

The device’s latest features include Actions that connect spoken conversations to emails and calendar events, Daily Insights that surface long-term behavioral patterns, Voice Notes for quick capture, and Templates that automatically format summaries based on context, such as meetings or lectures.

These join Bee’s existing AI-powered capabilities that include transcribing the user’s conversations, making them searchable and using that content to create resources such as a to-do list.

“When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,” Zollo said when announcing the company’s purchase by Amazon.

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