Logistics, Amazon accelerates on robots and digital transition

Trying to lift a coin lying on a surface with your fingers is an operation that we have found ourselves doing many times, but we have rarely stopped to think about the skills that are required of us to carry out this simple task. Grabbing a coin, putting on a bracelet, handling a fragile object require a combination of sight, touch, strength and fine coordination. It is precisely this distance – between the naturalness of the human gesture and the rigidity of machines – that represents one of the most complex challenges for robotics. Today, however, something is about to change. Or at least that is what Amazon wants to do, bringing Vulcan to its warehouses, the first robot capable not only of seeing, but also of “feeling”. Behind the appearance of a thin metal arm, Vulcan hides a sophisticated sensorial intelligence. It was presented for the first time in Dortmund, in the heart of Germany, inside the Last mile Innovation center, where Amazon is building the next generation logistics. Vulcan is already operational in Hamburg and Spokane, in the United States, and has already managed over half a million orders so far.

The e-commerce giant is no stranger to automation: it already has over 750,000 robots in the field worldwide. Vulcan, however, represents a leap in quality, because it introduces a “physical intelligence” that until now was the sole property of humans. The result is not only greater efficiency, but a radical transformation of work. The robot operates thanks to a combination of artificial vision and machine learning techniques that allow it to create three-dimensional representations of the environment and make decisions based on what it “sees”. Added to this is its ability to evaluate based on data analysis: «Vulcan uses artificial intelligence to reason, decide where to place an object, how to rearrange an already full container and how to manage the movement itself, in response to direct physical contact with the object», explained Aaron Parness, director of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at Amazon, underlining how Vulcan was not designed «to replace people, but to support them».

Vulcan is surrounded by an entire ecosystem of technologies, not visible to the end user, but decisive. Like the Made in Italy machine shown in Dortmund and that the company should soon distribute throughout its European network, capable of creating a customized package for each item in a few seconds, cutting paper and cardboard without waste. It is one of the many innovations that are transforming the “behind the scenes” of e-commerce. In the last three years, in fact, Amazon has invested over 700 million euros to bring this new generation of technologies to its European sorting warehouses. Today, operations that required hours and physical strength – such as lifting packages, sorting them by hand and reading barcodes – are entrusted to systems like Tipper, which empties carts automatically, or Echelon and the six-sided scanners, which identify packages from every angle, without the need for human intervention. Furthermore, with systems such as Agility, Matrix and ZancaSort, the paths of the packages are optimised to avoid unnecessary movements even by employees, while with Vass, a station guided by artificial vision, the technology visually indicates to workers where to place each individual package.

“With the technologies implemented, especially in the last five years, we have reduced accidents globally by 34% and the most serious ones by 65%,” said Susan Rhoads, vice president of Amazon, Global Workplace Health and Safety, underlining how this revolution has not stopped hiring. On the contrary, it has transformed them. “In 2024 alone, over 20,000 European employees have acquired skills in automation and AI. And thanks to the Career Choice program, Amazon finances professional refresher courses for those who decide to move from manual to technological roles,” says Rhoads.

In short, if the first industrial revolution led machines to replace human labor, this fourth revolution seems to want to protect it. Even in logistics. A scenario that dampens fears a bit, like the one relaunched by Goldman Sachs economists according to which, by 2030, as many as 300 million jobs worldwide could disappear at the home of AI and many other roles could be radically transformed.