Amazon's warehouse robots have always needed programmers. Not anymore. The company unveiled a new version of its Proteus robot Thursday at its Delivering the Future event in London, and the key upgrade is conversational: workers can now assign tasks using plain language instead of code or a programming interface. Amazon Robotics VP Scott Dresser described the dynamic as treating the robot like a colleague.
"You tell it what needs to be done. It figures out the priority, the route, the timing," he said at the event.
Proteus first appeared in 2022 as Amazon's inaugural fully autonomous mobile robot, but the original version was confined to dock areas. The next-gen model operates across entire warehouse floors, transporting containers, carts weighing nearly 882 pounds, and delivery loads anywhere items need moving. The robot is currently being piloted in Amazon's labs and is slated for European deployment in the first half of 2027. The upgrade arrives as part of a broader €10 billion ($11.6 billion) investment to expand and modernize Amazon's European fulfillment network with robotics and automation.
Alongside Proteus, Amazon is expanding Vulcan, its touch-sensitive robot for precise item handling, and STARK, a tote-handling system first tested in Barcelona that will reach 15 European facilities by 2027. The labor math is complicated. Amazon said it plans to add 25,000 jobs in Europe over the coming years while expanding automation, and committed $1 billion to its Career Choice training program by 2030, which has already enrolled more than 300,000 employees globally. But internal documents obtained by The New York Times in October showed Amazon's automation team expected the company could avoid hiring more than 160,000 US workers by 2027. The robotics team's reported internal goal: automating 75 percent of company operations.
Amazon now operates more than 1 million robots across its fulfillment network. The company pointed out that it has hired hundreds of thousands of employees since introducing robotics, and framed the new Proteus as a tool that lets workers focus on "higher-skilled work like managing inventory flow and ensuring quality control."
Beyond the warehouse floor, Amazon is expanding same-day delivery with more than 25 new European sites this year and bringing its Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery service to Manchester and Birmingham. The company also said Alexa+ will launch in 10 additional countries in 2027, extending generative AI across its consumer products.
