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4 August 2025

Amazon has 1 million robots

4 August 2025

Amazon had 1.5 million employees at the end of 2024.

“As of December 31, 2024, we employed approximately 1,556,000 full-time and part-time employees. Additionally, we use independent contractors and temporary personnel to supplement our workforce.” - from Amazon’s 10K, page 4 “Human capital”

And 1 million robots in June 2025.

“We’ve just deployed our 1 millionth robot, building on our position as the world’s largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics.” - Amazon launches a new AI foundation model to power its robotic fleet and deploys its 1 millionth robot

The number of people is flattish, the number of robots is growing - it was 100,000 in 2017.

So when these lines cross in the next few years, what will change? Can we imagine an Amazon warehouse with a single employee and a million robots? Do robots allow a new scale of scale, a city inside a warehouse instead of warehouses in a city? And what will the robots want? Will they have a union?

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