Amazon has more than 1 million robots working in warehouses around the clock to enable same-day and one-day package deliveries. The company is poised to significantly grow its robotic fleet as it establishes new factories to produce increasingly capable robot workers.
Amazon’s 2025 annual report states that the company employs more than 1.5 million full-time and part-time human workers, making it the second-largest corporate employer in the world. Amazon executives claim that the growing robot fleet has eased the burden on its human workforce by taking on the toughest fulfillment center tasks.
Brian Greenwood, professor of business at George Mason University, told Ars that collaborative robots change the dynamic for two reasons: they are physically proximate, and they dictate the pace of work. The injury and illness rate for US warehouse workers has typically been more than double the average across all industries, according to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
"For the last 100 years, most of the automation that we’ve seen usually happens away from workers—you’re taking that high-risk task away from the worker, and you’re doing so in a way that is not physically proximate," said Greenwood. He added that the rise of collaborative robots changes this dynamic.
Amazon has rapidly built its robotic fleet following its 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems, which pioneered wheeled mobile robots that bring racks of items to warehouse workers. The company also announced new production factories in Austin, Texas, and Greenwood, Indiana, to churn out more robots in the future.
Source: arstechnica
