July 2, 2025 • 13 mins
Amazon's robotics unit has just deployed its one millionth robot, building on its position as the world's largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics. This milestone robot was recently delivered to a fulfillment center in Japan, joining a global network that now spans more than 300 facilities worldwide.
Tye Brady, Chief Technologist for Amazon's expansive robotics unit, explains how new AI technology will make the world's largest fleet of industrial mobile robots smarter and more efficient.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Weekdaily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay
ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping
today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news
(00:23):
as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with
Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Amazon is marking a milestone today now using over a
million robots in its warehouses. The US e commerce company
and is so much more to be fair now uses
over a million robots in its warehouses, which is about
the same level as its employees, at least according to
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported out this news.
Let's get more on this and what is really increasingly
(00:52):
becoming a robotic world that feels like we head to
Tokyo where it is the middle of the night. We
are grateful that he stayed up or woke up for us.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Business Week Daily. Ty Brady, chief
technologist at Amazon Robotics, Ty, thank you, did you nap?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Did you stay up? It's a short nap, but it's
a really exciting day for sure, And thank you for
having me sleep here in Tokyo.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's true. Robots don't need to sleep, but they do
need to be taken care of. Hey, one millionth robot
and counting over that mark, what was the robot that
marked the milestone? And how significant is for you give
us some kind of size and scope of robots at Amazon.
Remind us it's.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
An incredible achievement. I'm so proud of our team to
be able to deploy more than one million robots to
our global fleet. Our one millionth robot, I'm here in Tokyo.
We actually deliver it to a fulfillment center in Chiba.
Here in Japan, a great region for us for sure,
And the way that we see it is it's really
(01:53):
a force multiplier for both safety for our employees and
also for the efficiencies getting those goods right to our
customer's door on time, at a low cost, just in
time for prime day.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So when we talk about robots, I don't think of
the roomba. I think of C three po and that
doesn't seem to be where we are quite yet, certainly
not in America, right we don't have a bunch of
humanoid androids running around how far away is that.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Tie, Matt, you're speaking my love language, because when I
think of robots, actually think of R two D two,
not C three PO Because I do want to remind
you who is in the back of the X Wing
Fighter when Luke Skywalker had to go into into the
Death Star. That was R two D two. And why
I love R two two and actually R two D
two was the inspiration for my entire career, it's because
(02:43):
R two D two helps a Jedi be more Jedi.
And that's kind of the way that we view our
robotics inside of Amazon. We see our robotics as an
extension and amplification of what a person can do. Just
like any great robot, it's it should be a two
rule centered around a person, right, So we put people
(03:03):
at the center of the robotics universe. That's what we've
done with a million robots that we've deployed out there,
whether it's in mobility or manipulation. We are giving our
frontline employees the right tool set in order to do
their jobs more efficiently, and we're also created more safety
for them.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hi, where's it all going? And I asked that if
we're giving you know, increasingly, you've got these robots, You've
got AI and all of this is assisting workers. Like,
where's it all headed?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, it's well. I really do believe that we're pioneering
the field of collaborative robotics. So as we continue to
gain efficiencies, as we continue to create safety for our employees,
we become more productive. That has clearly worked inside of
Amazon and frankly for e commerce, where we see that
if you can build your robots in the right way
(03:53):
that amplifies human potential and as a system that works
with people, it's not people versus machines, but it's machines
and people working together or to the job. We have
really revolutionized that field. So what we have seen historically
is the more robots that we have added, and this
(04:13):
is now over a ten years plus since the Amazon
really got serious about robotics, we've created hundreds of thousands
of new jobs, and we've also even created new job types.
So where I see it going is that the onus
is on us roboticists to build our machines in a
way that is intuitive and natural for people to use,
to build them with specific intent in the functions in
(04:36):
order to help people do their jobs better and My
goal is to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive.
I aim to eliminate every single one of those tasks
and allow people to think at a higher level and
use the tool set in order to get the job done.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
What kind of robots are helping you deal with? Like
Prime Day, for instance, it's coming up. I think eighth
is when it kicks off massive shopping day for people
around the world, but also for people on Amazon warehouses.
I mean, do they have like an exoskeleton like tom Cruise,
an Edge of Tomorrow or is it actually, you know,
(05:15):
a humanoid that's running around picking up orders and putting
them in boxes to ship out.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah. We think of function first before form, right, So
when you say humanoid, that's really a form base. But
the functions that we really index on in robotics is
the ability to move items from one side of the
warehouse to another, or manipulate items, or store or sort
or identify and pack those items. That's really what we do.
So if you were to walk into one of our
(05:40):
fulfillment centers, you would see these little drive units moving
goods at will. Thousands and thousands of these drive units
moving our pods to a person in order to pick
out those items. You would see robotic arms picking up
heavy packages. This is the headed to jobs that I
(06:01):
speak of. Before picking up heavy packages and moving those
into sortation systems, you would see sortation drives moving to
the right and correct spot in order to bring it
to the truck. You would see a cute little robot
that we call Proteus, and that's the safety certified around
people that can move these large containers of goods to
the right truck at the right time. So it's really
(06:22):
the symphony of people and machines that working together, which
is really incredible to see. And it's a very practical
in a very practical manner, and that's something that I'm
very proud of because this application is really what's driving
the fundamentals of robotics. It allows us to be adaptive
and more modular or creating the safer environment for our
employees and also frankly, gaining a lot of efficiencies.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Hey, ty, it does look like and we're just showing
some pictures out there for those who are watching us
right now, and it does look like robots are increasingly
becoming more quote unquote human like in terms of standing
up and having kind of appendages.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
That's the form he doesn't want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I know, I know you don't, but I want to
go to something Times of London out Andy Jasse. Of
course you're chief executive sending a memo to staff in
June saying he expected it's corporate workforce with shrink as
it rolls out AI, and this was the quote, we
will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that
are being done today and more people doing other types
of jobs in the next few years. We expect that
this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get
(07:23):
efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. That's AI,
But I do think about AI and robotics really increasingly
merging replacing workers. How close are you guys to using
more robots than humans in your warehouses?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it's a great quote, first of all, And I
do want to to point out the difference between there's
AI systems and there's physical AI systems. Right, So you
can think of an AI system as the digital chess
that's in your computer and you can play chess there,
but physical AI is that you would want a system
with a real chess board in front of you. We're
actually picking up the pieces and moving those pieces, right.
(07:59):
So this physical association and what we have seen is
when we build the right tool set for our employees,
what we do is we really increase productivity for our employees.
And what that does is that allows us to invest
more in two key areas. We invest in better collabative robotics, right,
a better tool set for employees to use, and we
(08:19):
all also invest in our people. Right. We have upskilled
more than seven hundred thousand of our employees. It's really
important to be mindful of upskilling. It's important to realize
that jobs will change over time. There's no doubt about that.
And our aim is to give our employees, in particular
our frontline employees, the best tool set possible for them
(08:42):
to do their jobs.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So I love that upskilling figure, And it sounds like
you guys are prioritizing certainly making sure your employees they
can kind of move up or move on to where
you guys have demand and where you need workers. But
I do want to go back to is there a
point where you do have more robots in humans in
your warehouses? And are you clothes?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, it's just be careful about the correlation because imagine
you were let's just say that you're a carpenter, right,
What I aim to do is give that carpenter the
best tools that possible. I don't really count the number
of tools that they would have, but instead I would
actually index on the effectiveness of those tools. Are we
allowing that carpenter to do their art and create or
(09:25):
build the house in a shorter amount of time with
even higher quality and create it a safer environment. So
I mean we could index on the numbers. We're proud
of the numbers that we have for sure, because it
represents some really pioneering work by the many women and
women and men scientists and engineers that have designed them.
But remember we also manufacture these, so we have manufacturing jobs. Remember,
(09:48):
we'd support these in the field, we deploy these live
in the field. And then of course we have our
frontline operators that were very very thankful for. So it's
a full ecosystem that when you it's really a force
multiplier when you do robotics, right, when you do robotics
that extends a person's capability to do their job, amplifies
(10:10):
the human potential, then you really have changed the game.
And that's what that's why today's one million. It's a
one million force multiplier for our employees for the benefit
of our employees and also for the benefits of our customers,
because we know that they love to have the world's
largest selection of goods. Robotics helps with that. We can actually,
as compared to our manual buildings, we can store more
(10:30):
than forty percent more goods in the same footprint. We
know that it fuels a lower cost that we can
pass along to our customer because of the efficiency gains
inside of our entire fulfillment chain. And we know it
fuels the fast delivery times that we know our customers
love because we have the ability to pull any order
really quickly and bring that the right good right to
(10:52):
the customers. So robotics is helping spin that flywheel.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Jerrold has never gotten over Eric Brynolfson's book Race Against
the Machine, and so that's what she's asking about. You
went to MIT, right, and so you know that you know,
you know, Brino, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I think it's great robotics, especially some of those tedious jobs,
repetitive jobs, physical jobs. And then if you're upskilling to
you know people who are working now on creating the robots, Like,
I think it's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I think, you know, it's supposed to be dystopian, but
I love the idea in Wally that we will eventually
just float around in debt chairs on a cruise ship,
drinking icys while the robots do our work for us
and get paid dividends. What do you think about that
kind of future? And I especially wonder about cryptocurrencies being used,
(11:42):
because machines will have to work with machines and transact.
And this was the idea that we were kind of
sold on at the birth of bitcoin. But is there
any is there anything that's not science fiction to that idea?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, I could tell you what we're doing is definitely
not science fiction. It's actually very practical and applied, and
it's it's giving a great success uh to our employees,
and it's also benefiting our customers very directly. Right. So
the I love that, Carol, I love that the the
the idea. I'm gonna go jump back to Star Wars
(12:20):
for for a minute if you guys want to geek
out for me for a second. If you remember, we
have a long young Luke Skywalker. Uh not even the
he didn't even know he had the Jedi force and
he was out when he met R two D two
n C three p oo. He was actually going uh
to get farming equipment. R two D two and C
three PO were meant to be farming aids to help him.
(12:42):
Even in our science fiction.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
In that by the Sand people remember ye.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, next thing you know, you know, he meets the
two of them and he's he's a Jedi. That's not
too bad.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
I have my own feelings about C three PO. I
mean C three PO needs to step up their game
a little bit, but say that.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This is the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(13:19):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Weekdaily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay
ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping
today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news
(00:23):
as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with
Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Amazon is marking a milestone today now using over a
million robots in its warehouses. The US e commerce company
and is so much more to be fair now uses
over a million robots in its warehouses, which is about
the same level as its employees, at least according to
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported out this news.
Let's get more on this and what is really increasingly
(00:52):
becoming a robotic world that feels like we head to
Tokyo where it is the middle of the night. We
are grateful that he stayed up or woke up for us.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Business Week Daily. Ty Brady, chief
technologist at Amazon Robotics, Ty, thank you, did you nap?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Did you stay up? It's a short nap, but it's
a really exciting day for sure, And thank you for
having me sleep here in Tokyo.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
That's true. Robots don't need to sleep, but they do
need to be taken care of. Hey, one millionth robot
and counting over that mark, what was the robot that
marked the milestone? And how significant is for you give
us some kind of size and scope of robots at Amazon.
Remind us it's.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
An incredible achievement. I'm so proud of our team to
be able to deploy more than one million robots to
our global fleet. Our one millionth robot, I'm here in Tokyo.
We actually deliver it to a fulfillment center in Chiba.
Here in Japan, a great region for us for sure,
And the way that we see it is it's really
(01:53):
a force multiplier for both safety for our employees and
also for the efficiencies getting those goods right to our
customer's door on time, at a low cost, just in
time for prime day.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So when we talk about robots, I don't think of
the roomba. I think of C three po and that
doesn't seem to be where we are quite yet, certainly
not in America, right we don't have a bunch of
humanoid androids running around how far away is that.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Tie, Matt, you're speaking my love language, because when I
think of robots, actually think of R two D two,
not C three PO Because I do want to remind
you who is in the back of the X Wing
Fighter when Luke Skywalker had to go into into the
Death Star. That was R two D two. And why
I love R two two and actually R two D
two was the inspiration for my entire career, it's because
(02:43):
R two D two helps a Jedi be more Jedi.
And that's kind of the way that we view our
robotics inside of Amazon. We see our robotics as an
extension and amplification of what a person can do. Just
like any great robot, it's it should be a two
rule centered around a person, right, So we put people
(03:03):
at the center of the robotics universe. That's what we've
done with a million robots that we've deployed out there,
whether it's in mobility or manipulation. We are giving our
frontline employees the right tool set in order to do
their jobs more efficiently, and we're also created more safety
for them.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hi, where's it all going? And I asked that if
we're giving you know, increasingly, you've got these robots, You've
got AI and all of this is assisting workers. Like,
where's it all headed?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, it's well. I really do believe that we're pioneering
the field of collaborative robotics. So as we continue to
gain efficiencies, as we continue to create safety for our employees,
we become more productive. That has clearly worked inside of
Amazon and frankly for e commerce, where we see that
if you can build your robots in the right way
(03:53):
that amplifies human potential and as a system that works
with people, it's not people versus machines, but it's machines
and people working together or to the job. We have
really revolutionized that field. So what we have seen historically
is the more robots that we have added, and this
(04:13):
is now over a ten years plus since the Amazon
really got serious about robotics, we've created hundreds of thousands
of new jobs, and we've also even created new job types.
So where I see it going is that the onus
is on us roboticists to build our machines in a
way that is intuitive and natural for people to use,
to build them with specific intent in the functions in
(04:36):
order to help people do their jobs better and My
goal is to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive.
I aim to eliminate every single one of those tasks
and allow people to think at a higher level and
use the tool set in order to get the job done.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
What kind of robots are helping you deal with? Like
Prime Day, for instance, it's coming up. I think eighth
is when it kicks off massive shopping day for people
around the world, but also for people on Amazon warehouses.
I mean, do they have like an exoskeleton like tom Cruise,
an Edge of Tomorrow or is it actually, you know,
(05:15):
a humanoid that's running around picking up orders and putting
them in boxes to ship out.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah. We think of function first before form, right, So
when you say humanoid, that's really a form base. But
the functions that we really index on in robotics is
the ability to move items from one side of the
warehouse to another, or manipulate items, or store or sort
or identify and pack those items. That's really what we do.
So if you were to walk into one of our
(05:40):
fulfillment centers, you would see these little drive units moving
goods at will. Thousands and thousands of these drive units
moving our pods to a person in order to pick
out those items. You would see robotic arms picking up
heavy packages. This is the headed to jobs that I
(06:01):
speak of. Before picking up heavy packages and moving those
into sortation systems, you would see sortation drives moving to
the right and correct spot in order to bring it
to the truck. You would see a cute little robot
that we call Proteus, and that's the safety certified around
people that can move these large containers of goods to
the right truck at the right time. So it's really
(06:22):
the symphony of people and machines that working together, which
is really incredible to see. And it's a very practical
in a very practical manner, and that's something that I'm
very proud of because this application is really what's driving
the fundamentals of robotics. It allows us to be adaptive
and more modular or creating the safer environment for our
employees and also frankly, gaining a lot of efficiencies.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Hey, ty, it does look like and we're just showing
some pictures out there for those who are watching us
right now, and it does look like robots are increasingly
becoming more quote unquote human like in terms of standing
up and having kind of appendages.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
That's the form he doesn't want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I know, I know you don't, but I want to
go to something Times of London out Andy Jasse. Of
course you're chief executive sending a memo to staff in
June saying he expected it's corporate workforce with shrink as
it rolls out AI, and this was the quote, we
will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that
are being done today and more people doing other types
of jobs in the next few years. We expect that
this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get
(07:23):
efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. That's AI,
But I do think about AI and robotics really increasingly
merging replacing workers. How close are you guys to using
more robots than humans in your warehouses?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it's a great quote, first of all, And I
do want to to point out the difference between there's
AI systems and there's physical AI systems. Right, So you
can think of an AI system as the digital chess
that's in your computer and you can play chess there,
but physical AI is that you would want a system
with a real chess board in front of you. We're
actually picking up the pieces and moving those pieces, right.
(07:59):
So this physical association and what we have seen is
when we build the right tool set for our employees,
what we do is we really increase productivity for our employees.
And what that does is that allows us to invest
more in two key areas. We invest in better collabative robotics, right,
a better tool set for employees to use, and we
(08:19):
all also invest in our people. Right. We have upskilled
more than seven hundred thousand of our employees. It's really
important to be mindful of upskilling. It's important to realize
that jobs will change over time. There's no doubt about that.
And our aim is to give our employees, in particular
our frontline employees, the best tool set possible for them
(08:42):
to do their jobs.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So I love that upskilling figure, And it sounds like
you guys are prioritizing certainly making sure your employees they
can kind of move up or move on to where
you guys have demand and where you need workers. But
I do want to go back to is there a
point where you do have more robots in humans in
your warehouses? And are you clothes?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, it's just be careful about the correlation because imagine
you were let's just say that you're a carpenter, right,
What I aim to do is give that carpenter the
best tools that possible. I don't really count the number
of tools that they would have, but instead I would
actually index on the effectiveness of those tools. Are we
allowing that carpenter to do their art and create or
(09:25):
build the house in a shorter amount of time with
even higher quality and create it a safer environment. So
I mean we could index on the numbers. We're proud
of the numbers that we have for sure, because it
represents some really pioneering work by the many women and
women and men scientists and engineers that have designed them.
But remember we also manufacture these, so we have manufacturing jobs. Remember,
(09:48):
we'd support these in the field, we deploy these live
in the field. And then of course we have our
frontline operators that were very very thankful for. So it's
a full ecosystem that when you it's really a force
multiplier when you do robotics, right, when you do robotics
that extends a person's capability to do their job, amplifies
(10:10):
the human potential, then you really have changed the game.
And that's what that's why today's one million. It's a
one million force multiplier for our employees for the benefit
of our employees and also for the benefits of our customers,
because we know that they love to have the world's
largest selection of goods. Robotics helps with that. We can actually,
as compared to our manual buildings, we can store more
(10:30):
than forty percent more goods in the same footprint. We
know that it fuels a lower cost that we can
pass along to our customer because of the efficiency gains
inside of our entire fulfillment chain. And we know it
fuels the fast delivery times that we know our customers
love because we have the ability to pull any order
really quickly and bring that the right good right to
(10:52):
the customers. So robotics is helping spin that flywheel.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Jerrold has never gotten over Eric Brynolfson's book Race Against
the Machine, and so that's what she's asking about. You
went to MIT, right, and so you know that you know,
you know, Brino, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
I think it's great robotics, especially some of those tedious jobs,
repetitive jobs, physical jobs. And then if you're upskilling to
you know people who are working now on creating the robots, Like,
I think it's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
I think, you know, it's supposed to be dystopian, but
I love the idea in Wally that we will eventually
just float around in debt chairs on a cruise ship,
drinking icys while the robots do our work for us
and get paid dividends. What do you think about that
kind of future? And I especially wonder about cryptocurrencies being used,
(11:42):
because machines will have to work with machines and transact.
And this was the idea that we were kind of
sold on at the birth of bitcoin. But is there
any is there anything that's not science fiction to that idea?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, I could tell you what we're doing is definitely
not science fiction. It's actually very practical and applied, and
it's it's giving a great success uh to our employees,
and it's also benefiting our customers very directly. Right. So
the I love that, Carol, I love that the the
the idea. I'm gonna go jump back to Star Wars
(12:20):
for for a minute if you guys want to geek
out for me for a second. If you remember, we
have a long young Luke Skywalker. Uh not even the
he didn't even know he had the Jedi force and
he was out when he met R two D two
n C three p oo. He was actually going uh
to get farming equipment. R two D two and C
three PO were meant to be farming aids to help him.
(12:42):
Even in our science fiction.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
In that by the Sand people remember ye.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, next thing you know, you know, he meets the
two of them and he's he's a Jedi. That's not
too bad.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Now.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
I have my own feelings about C three PO. I
mean C three PO needs to step up their game
a little bit, but say that.
Speaker 4 (12:58):
This is the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
(13:19):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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