Amazon's new warehouse robot can identify and handle millions of products.
The “state-of-the-art robot” is called Sparrow and it promises to help Amazon streamline shipments at the e-commerce giant to maintain speedy deliveries. “Sparrow is the first robotic system in our warehouses that can detect, select, and handle individual products in our inventory,” the company says.
The robot arrives as Amazon has been burning through human workers due to attrition. One leaked 2021 memo from the company estimates Amazon will “deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024.”
Sparrow can automate “a critical part” of the company’s fulfillment processes, but it isn’t designed to replace human workers. “Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, enabling our employees to focus their time and energy on other things, while also advancing safety,” Amazon says.
The company uploaded a video showing the robot sorting a pile of products and placing them in four bins, making it easier for a human worker to pack and ship the orders.
The Sparrow bot will join other robots at Amazon warehouses, including another robot arm system called Robin and the mobile Roomba-looking bot known as Cardinal that can move carts full of packages.
The company is now using more than a dozen different robot systems. Amazon has repeatedly pushed back on concerns the company is trying to replace human workers. Instead, Amazon says the use of robotics has created over 700 new job categories at warehouses.
“Speculation was rampant that Amazon was replacing people with robots. But 10 years on, the facts tell a different story,” the company wrote in a blog post in June. “We have more than 520,000 robotic drive units, and have added over a million jobs, worldwide.”