Internal strategy documents from Amazon reveal an ambitious plan to automate a vast portion of its operations, according to a report from The New York Times. The company, which is the nation's second-largest employer, has a goal to automate 75 percent of its operations.
This shift is expected to "flatten Amazon's hiring curve," allowing the company to avoid hiring more than 600,000 workers by 2033, even as it expects to double the number of products it sells.
Key Findings from the Report
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The "Shreveport" Template
A facility in Shreveport, La., serves as the template for future warehouses. It uses 1,000 robots and is expected to employ about half as many workers as a non-automated facility. Amazon plans to copy this design in approximately 40 more facilities by 2027.
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Cost Savings & Efficiency
The automation effort is expected to save about 30 cents on each item Amazon picks, packs, and delivers. The robotics team reduced the plan's cost to under $10 billion while increasing expected savings to $12.6 billion between 2025 and 2027.
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Shifting Job Landscape
The move will create a demand for more technical, higher-paid jobs like robotics technicians. However, there are concerns about the impact on current warehouse workers, who are disproportionately people of color.
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Controlling the Narrative
The documents suggest avoiding terms like "automation" and "A.I." Instead, they recommend using phrases like "advanced technology" or replacing "robot" with "cobot" to imply collaboration with humans.