Amazon has lots of of hundreds of robots in its warehouses, however that doesn’t imply all of its robotic initiatives are a hit story.
The ecommerce big has halted its Blue Jay warehouse robotics mission simply months after unveiling the tech, as initially reported by Business Insider and confirmed by TechCrunch.
Blue Jay, a multi-armed robotic designed to type and transfer packages, was unveiled in October to be used within the firm’s same-day supply amenities. On the time, the corporate was testing the robots at a facility in South Carolina and stated it took Amazon significantly less time to develop Blue Jay — solely a couple of yr— than it did to develop its different warehouse robots, a pace the corporate credited to developments in AI.
Amazon spokesperson Terrance Clark advised TechCrunch that Blue Jay was launched as a prototype — though that was not made clear within the firm’s unique press launch.
The corporate plans to make use of Blue Jay’s core know-how for different robotics “manipulation packages” with staff who labored on Blue Jay being moved to different initiatives.
“We’re at all times experimenting with new methods to enhance the client expertise and make work safer, extra environment friendly, and extra participating for our staff,” Clark advised TechCrunch over e mail. “On this case, we’re truly accelerating the usage of the underlying know-how developed for Blue Jay, and practically the entire applied sciences are being carried over and can proceed to help staff throughout our community.”
Amazon additionally unveiled the Vulcan robotic final yr, which is used within the storage compartments of the corporate’s warehouses. Vulcan is a two-armed robot, with one arm meant to rearrange and transfer objects in a compartment whereas the opposite is supplied with a digital camera and suction cups to seize items. The Vulcan can allegedly “really feel” the objects that it touches and was educated on knowledge gathered from real-world interactions.
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June 23, 2026
Amazon has been creating its inner robotics program since 2012 when it bought Kiva Methods, a robotics firm whose warehouse automation know-how fashioned the inspiration of Amazon’s success operations. It surpassed 1 million robots in its warehouses final July.
