Amazon has unveiled its latest warehouse robot as the tech giant continues to roll out AI layoffs

Amazon unveiled its latest warehouse robot that can take commands in conversational language, underscoring how AI-driven automation is advancing as companies continue to downsize their corporate workforces in AI-driven efficiencies.

The tech company’s next-generation Proteus is an autonomous mobile robot designed to understand natural language commands to transport workers and goods in warehouses. It was launched at the company’s Delivering the Future event in London on Thursday.

The original Proteus was first used in 2022 to assist workers at Amazon fulfillment centers, including transporting heavy 400 kilogram carts. It is currently deployed in 25 fulfillment centers in the US, with the latest version of the robot set to be rolled out in Europe in the first half of 2027.

Workers can operate the new protease in plain language without technical commands or a programming interface. It’s part of a broader push to expand technology in Europe, with Amazon pledging to invest 10 billion euros ($11.6 billion) over the next few years to modernize its fulfillment operations in the region.

Other robotics advances include its first touch-sensitive robot, Vulcan, and a robotic tote handling system called STARK.

The announcement comes as Amazon continues to ramp up layoffs, including cutting 14,000 corporate workers in October, citing plans to further invest in its “big challenges,” including AI. It said it would lay off another 16,000 workers in January to cut layers and red tape.

CEO Andy Jassy told employees last year that AI would shrink Amazon’s workforce in the coming years.

“Some jobs that are done today will require fewer people, and more people will do other types of work,” Jassey said in a memo to employees. “It’s hard to know where this will go over time, but over the next few years, we expect it to reduce our total corporate workforce.”

Many tech giants including Microsoft, sales force, And IBMAI is behind thousands of layoffs in 2025, with the technology responsible for more than 50,000 layoffs in the U.S. that year. Most recently, prevent, OracleAnd Meta Among the companies making job cuts are:

“Since we’ve invested in robotics, we’ve created hundreds of thousands of jobs,” Ty Brady, Amazon Robotics’ chief technologist told CNBC on Thursday.

Investments in people, development and smart machines are creating jobs, Brady said, adding that Amazon is creating more jobs in the U.S. than it has in the last 10 years.

Amazon’s vice president, country manager for the UK and Ireland, John Pumphrey, told CNBC that its robotics investment will actually require more staffing inside fulfillment centers, as the company struggles to hire people with the right skills.

“I’m making a big bet that we’re going to need a lot of people in our warehouse in the future… We’re employing more people in one place, so really, the experience with robots is that it’s more employment-increasing than the opposite,” Boumphrey told CNBC.

However, not everyone is convinced that robotics won’t lead to the decline of the workforce.

AI robots are already predicted to outnumber working people in the next few decades, increasing to 1.3 billion by 2035 and four billion by 2050, according to a 2024 Citi report.

Rob Garlick, former head of innovation, technology and future work at Citi Global Insights, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” in February that leaders will move to replace workers because humanoid robots already have a faster payback period than humans.

“We have a leadership system in economic terms and business terms that celebrates profit,” Garlick said at the time. “When you combine profitability with technological progress, we have the biggest business in history to come, based on artificial intelligence being able to do more and better, cheaper and cheaper, and replace people.”

The number of 16- to 24-year-olds in England without education, employment or training topped one million by the end of May, data from the country’s Office for National Statistics showed last week.

From AI replacing entry-level positions to competition for jobs, young people face huge challenges in the job market.

It’s a “national crisis,” Pomphrey said, adding that a key challenge is that young people are unprepared for the world of work.

“It’s a combination of Covid and the era of smartphones and social media … We’ve raised a generation of young people who think they want to engage with society, sitting in a dark room, on their phone, scrolling; it’s not their fault.”

Despite concerns about AI layoffs and youth unemployment, Boumphre said Amazon “can’t find enough people to do the skilled jobs we need,” from robotics technicians to mechatronic engineers.

The company has created 6,000 apprentices in the UK to address this skills gap and offers £3000 a year for staff to train on nationally recognized courses.

Correction: This article has been updated to accurately reflect Amazon’s reason for termination.