Amazon Nearing Equal Number of Human and Robot Warehouse Workers

Amazon reportedly has a record 1 million-plus robots working in its warehouses.

That’s according to a report Tuesday (July 1) by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which points out that the eCommerce giant is approaching another automation milestone: the company will soon have as many robots as humans in these facilities.

These machines include wheeled robots that move goods around the floor for packaging, or arms that help sort products.

Amazon recently rolled out Vulcan, a robot equipped with a sense of touch that allows it to pluck products from shelves. In addition, the WSJ adds, the company has been trying to connect its robots to its fulfillment operations, letting the machines work with each other and with humans.

“They’re one step closer to that realization of the full integration of robotics,” Rueben Scriven, research manager at Interact Analysis, a robotics consulting firm, told the WSJ.

According to the report, roughly three-quarters of Amazon’s deliveries now involve robotics in some fashion. This growing automation has helped the company boost productivity, while lessening the need to deal with high staff turnover at its fulfillment centers, the WSJ added.

Tye Brady, Amazon Robotics’ chief technologist, said in an interview with the WSJ that the new robots are designed to make workers’ jobs easier rather than replacing them.

And Sheheryar Kaoosji, executive director at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for warehouse workers, said robotics haven’t yet changed jobs in smaller Amazon sites as in large fulfillment centers.

Still, Kaoosji expressed concern about the longer-term effect on employment, arguing that Amazon’s “dream is to have significant reduction of workforce in high-density facilities.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote recently about the “retail realignment” underway in Amazon’s ongoing battle with rival Walmart.

“This realignment is not just about who sells what to whom; but how, why and with what consequence,” that report said. “Despite their shared ambitions, Amazon and Walmart are following different scripts.”

For Amazon, that means its long-term commitment to “platform thinking: build once, scale infinitely,” with its own tech stack, cloud infrastructure, means of distribution, along with a retail business powered by Prime, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Marketplace and AI.

For its part Walmart is playing to its traditional strengths while heavily investing in modernization, including an upgrade to its headquarters to reflect a tech-forward mindset.

“Both companies are converging on the same outcome: frictionless commerce,” the report continued. “Yet, the pathways they take — one engineered from code and the other from community presence — highlight the strategic diversity in retail.”