When Amazon unveiled its new Vulcan touch-sensing warehouse robot last week, it framed the technology as a way to make frontline jobs safer and easier.
What the company didn’t mention is a broader ambition: Using Vulcan and its expanding fleet of warehouse robots to reduce its need to hire a lot more human labor.
An internal document obtained by Business Insider reveals Amazon’s long-term vision of automating many warehouse tasks. The document, dated late last year, said Vulcan and similar robots are “critical to flattening Amazon’s hiring curve over the next ten years” as the company builds “the world’s most advanced Fulfillment Network.”
This suggests Amazon is trying to use automation to slow the rate of new hiring in the future, rather than replace existing workers. According to sources familiar with the matter, the automation push is also a response to growing costs and possible labor shortages in Amazon’s warehouses. These people, who are in senior positions at the company, asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to talk to the media.
The document, marked “Amazon Confidential,” was produced by Amazon’s retail team to review various important projects. It also outlined several AI initiatives designed to further optimize warehouse efficiency and employee productivity.
“Higher-value tasks”
The company still plans to “have a lot of people for a long period of time,” an Amazon spokesperson told BI, while noting that many future roles will involve “higher-value tasks.”
“Our robotics solutions are designed to automate tasks in an effort to continue improving safety, reducing repetition, and freeing our employees up to deliver for customers in more skilled ways,” the spokesperson added. “Since introducing robots within Amazon’s operations, we’ve continued to hire hundreds of thousands of employees to work in our facilities and created many new job categories worldwide, including positions like flow control specialists, floor monitors, and reliability maintenance engineers.”
The spokesperson also cautioned against drawing conclusions from a specific internal company document.
A leader in automation
Amazon has been a leader in warehouse automation for years, having acquired Kiva Systems in 2012 for roughly $775 million. The company has consistently streamlined its operations through technology, integrating more than 750,000 robots to work alongside over a million frontline employees in storing, picking, packing, and shipping goods.
For roughly a decade, Amazon’s headcount grew massively, even though it was embracing automation. However, this has gone into reverse in recent years.
After doubling its workforce to 1.6 million between 2019 and 2021, Amazon’s headcount declined to 1.55 million last year.
Humans working alongside robots
Amazon introduced Vulcan last week as its first tactile robot, capable of sensing and adjusting the force needed to pick products from crowded bins and tall baskets, improving safety and speed.
According to the internal document obtained by BI, Amazon’s robotics team is working on at least two AI models that will be building blocks for new applications that “will significantly enhance the efficiency and responsiveness of our robotics systems.” The company is also working on a new AI model called “Tetris” aimed that reducing variable labor and transportation costs, the document stated.
In the document, Aaron Parness, director of applied science at Amazon Robotics, emphasized robots’ role in enhancing efficiency and safety, ultimately enabling the company to fulfill more orders and deliver more shipments.
“We’ve always envisioned a solution that’s robots and humans working side by side,” Parness wrote. “And we think the sum of the two together is better than the parts alone.”
He added that automation helps Amazon retain frontline employees in a competitive labor market by improving the work environment and offering new technical career paths in maintenance and operations.
“You have to be competitive for workers,” Parness said. “So that people will want to work and stay at Amazon.”
A potential solution for labor shortages
Some Amazon employees told BI that machines such as Vulcan are designed not only to enhance productivity but also to help address a growing labor gap.
One employee said the company has set aggressive targets to automate much of the warehouse workload over the next decade to drive down costs. Amazon is also doing extensive research on how to up-skill the current workforce to move them into more maintenance-related jobs, this person explained.
With Amazon’s continued growth, finding enough workers has become increasingly difficult, another Amazon insider told BI. If the company doesn’t automate more, it will struggle to keep up with demand, this person added. These employees asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
A $10 billion opportunity
Vulcan is one of several new systems Amazon has introduced in recent years, including robotic arms such as Robin and Sparrow that sort orders, and mobile units like Proteus that transport packages across warehouses.
Amazon’s automation strategy could save as much as $10 billion annually if 30% to 40% of US orders are fulfilled through next-generation facilities by 2030, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.
“We expect Amazon to continue to expand its warehouse network (to support growth) while also upgrading the footprint toward next-gen robotics in new builds and retrofits,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a research note earlier this year.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reaffirmed the company’s commitment to automation during a February earnings call, saying its robotics investments aim to boost safety, productivity, and cost efficiency.
“We’ve already seen substantial value from our robotics innovations,” Jassy said.
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