Reportedly Investing Large Sums into AI to Support the Initiative

Amazon same day deliveries – coming by a robot to your front door.

With Amazon’s relentless push to automate any process it can, it was only a matter of time before its delivery drivers got the treatment.

Supply Chain Digest Says... At the same time as report, Amazon has launched a new agentic AI team to help develop technologies that will power robots “operating in Amazon distribution and logistics hubs.” What do you say? Click here to send us your comments Click here to see reader feedback

Getting a robot to make deliveries is a challenging endeavor, what with need to navigate stairs, damaged sidewalks and driveways, dogs, children, and more.
But that isn’t deterring Amazon from trying it anyways, according to an article last week in The Information web site.

Amazon is building AI-based software that will allow robots to successfully accomplish the job.

Apparently, the idea is that the package delivery robots will be transported in Amazon’s fleet of Rivian electric vans and will soon be ready to start real-world testing at a new facility.

Citing an anonymous source, The Information reports that Amazon has almost finished constructing an indoor “humanoid park” at one of the retail giant’s San Francisco offices that’s roughly the size of a coffee shop.

The obstacle course reportedly contains one Rivian van for training purposes, with Amazon aiming to have humanoid robots “hitch a ride in the back of Amazon’s electric Rivian vans and spring out to deliver packages.”

SCDigest notes several years ago that Amazon parcel delivery rival UPS had a similar idea, but with a small fleet of drones that would emerge from vans and make the deliveries, not robots, which we will note certainly would have a much higher maximum package weight it could deliver than would the drones.

It is not clear if a human will be driving the delivery vans. We’ll assume Yes for now.

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At the same time as report, Amazon has launched a new agentic AI team to help develop technologies that will power robots “operating in Amazon distribution and logistics hubs.” In a statement to Silicon Valley, Amazon stated that “instead of rigid, specialized robots, we’re creating systems that can hear, understand, and act on natural language commands, turning warehouse robots into flexible, multi-talented assistants.”

My goodness.

The Information reported that a “variety” of humanoid robots will be tested for package delivery by Amazon, including a $16,000 unit from China-based Unitree.

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