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Speaker 2: Amazon is marking a milestone today now using over a
Speaker 2: million robots in its warehouses. The US e commerce company
Speaker 2: and is so much more to be fair now uses
Speaker 2: over a million robots in its warehouses, which is about
Speaker 2: the same level as its employees, at least according to
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal, which first reported out this news.
Speaker 2: Let's get more on this and what is really increasingly
Speaker 2: becoming a robotic world that feels like we head to
Speaker 2: Tokyo where it is the middle of the night. We
Speaker 2: are grateful that he stayed up or woke up for us.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Bloomberg Business Week Daily. Ty Brady, chief
Speaker 2: technologist at Amazon Robotics, Ty, thank you, did you nap?
Speaker 3: Did you stay up? It's a short nap, but it's
Speaker 3: a really exciting day for sure, And thank you for
Speaker 3: having me sleep here in Tokyo.
Speaker 2: That's true. Robots don't need to sleep, but they do
Speaker 2: need to be taken care of. Hey, one millionth robot
Speaker 2: and counting over that mark, what was the robot that
Speaker 2: marked the milestone? And how significant is for you give
Speaker 2: us some kind of size and scope of robots at Amazon.
Speaker 2: Remind us it's.
Speaker 3: An incredible achievement. I'm so proud of our team to
Speaker 3: be able to deploy more than one million robots to
Speaker 3: our global fleet. Our one millionth robot, I'm here in Tokyo.
Speaker 3: We actually deliver it to a fulfillment center in Chiba.
Speaker 3: Here in Japan, a great region for us for sure,
Speaker 3: And the way that we see it is it's really
Speaker 3: a force multiplier for both safety for our employees and
Speaker 3: also for the efficiencies getting those goods right to our
Speaker 3: customer's door on time, at a low cost, just in
Speaker 3: time for prime day.
Speaker 4: So when we talk about robots, I don't think of
Speaker 4: the roomba. I think of C three po and that
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to be where we are quite yet, certainly
Speaker 4: not in America, right we don't have a bunch of
Speaker 4: humanoid androids running around how far away is that.
Speaker 3: Tie, Matt, you're speaking my love language, because when I
Speaker 3: think of robots, actually think of R two D two,
Speaker 3: not C three PO Because I do want to remind
Speaker 3: you who is in the back of the X Wing
Speaker 3: Fighter when Luke Skywalker had to go into into the
Speaker 3: Death Star. That was R two D two. And why
Speaker 3: I love R two two and actually R two D
Speaker 3: two was the inspiration for my entire career, it's because
Speaker 3: R two D two helps a Jedi be more Jedi.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of the way that we view our
Speaker 3: robotics inside of Amazon. We see our robotics as an
Speaker 3: extension and amplification of what a person can do. Just
Speaker 3: like any great robot, it's it should be a two
Speaker 3: rule centered around a person, right, So we put people
Speaker 3: at the center of the robotics universe. That's what we've
Speaker 3: done with a million robots that we've deployed out there,
Speaker 3: whether it's in mobility or manipulation. We are giving our
Speaker 3: frontline employees the right tool set in order to do
Speaker 3: their jobs more efficiently, and we're also created more safety
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 2: Hi, where's it all going? And I asked that if
Speaker 2: we're giving you know, increasingly, you've got these robots, You've
Speaker 2: got AI and all of this is assisting workers. Like,
Speaker 2: where's it all headed?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well. I really do believe that we're pioneering
Speaker 3: the field of collaborative robotics. So as we continue to
Speaker 3: gain efficiencies, as we continue to create safety for our employees,
Speaker 3: we become more productive. That has clearly worked inside of
Speaker 3: Amazon and frankly for e commerce, where we see that
Speaker 3: if you can build your robots in the right way
Speaker 3: that amplifies human potential and as a system that works
Speaker 3: with people, it's not people versus machines, but it's machines
Speaker 3: and people working together or to the job. We have
Speaker 3: really revolutionized that field. So what we have seen historically
Speaker 3: is the more robots that we have added, and this
Speaker 3: is now over a ten years plus since the Amazon
Speaker 3: really got serious about robotics, we've created hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of new jobs, and we've also even created new job types.
Speaker 3: So where I see it going is that the onus
Speaker 3: is on us roboticists to build our machines in a
Speaker 3: way that is intuitive and natural for people to use,
Speaker 3: to build them with specific intent in the functions in
Speaker 3: order to help people do their jobs better and My
Speaker 3: goal is to eliminate the menial, the mundane, and the repetitive.
Speaker 3: I aim to eliminate every single one of those tasks
Speaker 3: and allow people to think at a higher level and
Speaker 3: use the tool set in order to get the job done.
Speaker 4: What kind of robots are helping you deal with? Like
Speaker 4: Prime Day, for instance, it's coming up. I think eighth
Speaker 4: is when it kicks off massive shopping day for people
Speaker 4: around the world, but also for people on Amazon warehouses.
Speaker 4: I mean, do they have like an exoskeleton like tom Cruise,
Speaker 4: an Edge of Tomorrow or is it actually, you know,
Speaker 4: a humanoid that's running around picking up orders and putting
Speaker 4: them in boxes to ship out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We think of function first before form, right, So
Speaker 3: when you say humanoid, that's really a form base. But
Speaker 3: the functions that we really index on in robotics is
Speaker 3: the ability to move items from one side of the
Speaker 3: warehouse to another, or manipulate items, or store or sort
Speaker 3: or identify and pack those items. That's really what we do.
Speaker 3: So if you were to walk into one of our
Speaker 3: fulfillment centers, you would see these little drive units moving
Speaker 3: goods at will. Thousands and thousands of these drive units
Speaker 3: moving our pods to a person in order to pick
Speaker 3: out those items. You would see robotic arms picking up
Speaker 3: heavy packages. This is the headed to jobs that I
Speaker 3: speak of. Before picking up heavy packages and moving those
Speaker 3: into sortation systems, you would see sortation drives moving to
Speaker 3: the right and correct spot in order to bring it
Speaker 3: to the truck. You would see a cute little robot
Speaker 3: that we call Proteus, and that's the safety certified around
Speaker 3: people that can move these large containers of goods to
Speaker 3: the right truck at the right time. So it's really
Speaker 3: the symphony of people and machines that working together, which
Speaker 3: is really incredible to see. And it's a very practical
Speaker 3: in a very practical manner, and that's something that I'm
Speaker 3: very proud of because this application is really what's driving
Speaker 3: the fundamentals of robotics. It allows us to be adaptive
Speaker 3: and more modular or creating the safer environment for our
Speaker 3: employees and also frankly, gaining a lot of efficiencies.
Speaker 2: Hey, ty, it does look like and we're just showing
Speaker 2: some pictures out there for those who are watching us
Speaker 2: right now, and it does look like robots are increasingly
Speaker 2: becoming more quote unquote human like in terms of standing
Speaker 2: up and having kind of appendages.
Speaker 4: That's the form he doesn't want to talk about.
Speaker 2: I know, I know you don't, but I want to
Speaker 2: go to something Times of London out Andy Jasse. Of
Speaker 2: course you're chief executive sending a memo to staff in
Speaker 2: June saying he expected it's corporate workforce with shrink as
Speaker 2: it rolls out AI, and this was the quote, we
Speaker 2: will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that
Speaker 2: are being done today and more people doing other types
Speaker 2: of jobs in the next few years. We expect that
Speaker 2: this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get
Speaker 2: efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company. That's AI,
Speaker 2: But I do think about AI and robotics really increasingly
Speaker 2: merging replacing workers. How close are you guys to using
Speaker 2: more robots than humans in your warehouses?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great quote, first of all, And I
Speaker 3: do want to to point out the difference between there's
Speaker 3: AI systems and there's physical AI systems. Right, So you
Speaker 3: can think of an AI system as the digital chess
Speaker 3: that's in your computer and you can play chess there,
Speaker 3: but physical AI is that you would want a system
Speaker 3: with a real chess board in front of you. We're
Speaker 3: actually picking up the pieces and moving those pieces, right.
Speaker 3: So this physical association and what we have seen is
Speaker 3: when we build the right tool set for our employees,
Speaker 3: what we do is we really increase productivity for our employees.
Speaker 3: And what that does is that allows us to invest
Speaker 3: more in two key areas. We invest in better collabative robotics, right,
Speaker 3: a better tool set for employees to use, and we
Speaker 3: all also invest in our people. Right. We have upskilled
Speaker 3: more than seven hundred thousand of our employees. It's really
Speaker 3: important to be mindful of upskilling. It's important to realize
Speaker 3: that jobs will change over time. There's no doubt about that.
Speaker 3: And our aim is to give our employees, in particular
Speaker 3: our frontline employees, the best tool set possible for them
Speaker 3: to do their jobs.
Speaker 2: So I love that upskilling figure, And it sounds like
Speaker 2: you guys are prioritizing certainly making sure your employees they
Speaker 2: can kind of move up or move on to where
Speaker 2: you guys have demand and where you need workers. But
Speaker 2: I do want to go back to is there a
Speaker 2: point where you do have more robots in humans in
Speaker 2: your warehouses? And are you clothes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just be careful about the correlation because imagine
Speaker 3: you were let's just say that you're a carpenter, right,
Speaker 3: What I aim to do is give that carpenter the
Speaker 3: best tools that possible. I don't really count the number
Speaker 3: of tools that they would have, but instead I would
Speaker 3: actually index on the effectiveness of those tools. Are we
Speaker 3: allowing that carpenter to do their art and create or
Speaker 3: build the house in a shorter amount of time with
Speaker 3: even higher quality and create it a safer environment. So
Speaker 3: I mean we could index on the numbers. We're proud
Speaker 3: of the numbers that we have for sure, because it
Speaker 3: represents some really pioneering work by the many women and
Speaker 3: women and men scientists and engineers that have designed them.
Speaker 3: But remember we also manufacture these, so we have manufacturing jobs. Remember,
Speaker 3: we'd support these in the field, we deploy these live
Speaker 3: in the field. And then of course we have our
Speaker 3: frontline operators that were very very thankful for. So it's
Speaker 3: a full ecosystem that when you it's really a force
Speaker 3: multiplier when you do robotics, right, when you do robotics
Speaker 3: that extends a person's capability to do their job, amplifies
Speaker 3: the human potential, then you really have changed the game.
Speaker 3: And that's what that's why today's one million. It's a
Speaker 3: one million force multiplier for our employees for the benefit
Speaker 3: of our employees and also for the benefits of our customers,
Speaker 3: because we know that they love to have the world's
Speaker 3: largest selection of goods. Robotics helps with that. We can actually,
Speaker 3: as compared to our manual buildings, we can store more
Speaker 3: than forty percent more goods in the same footprint. We
Speaker 3: know that it fuels a lower cost that we can
Speaker 3: pass along to our customer because of the efficiency gains
Speaker 3: inside of our entire fulfillment chain. And we know it
Speaker 3: fuels the fast delivery times that we know our customers
Speaker 3: love because we have the ability to pull any order
Speaker 3: really quickly and bring that the right good right to
Speaker 3: the customers. So robotics is helping spin that flywheel.
Speaker 4: Jerrold has never gotten over Eric Brynolfson's book Race Against
Speaker 4: the Machine, and so that's what she's asking about. You
Speaker 4: went to MIT, right, and so you know that you know,
Speaker 4: you know, Brino, here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I think it's great robotics, especially some of those tedious jobs,
Speaker 2: repetitive jobs, physical jobs. And then if you're upskilling to
Speaker 2: you know people who are working now on creating the robots, Like,
Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, it's supposed to be dystopian, but
Speaker 4: I love the idea in Wally that we will eventually
Speaker 4: just float around in debt chairs on a cruise ship,
Speaker 4: drinking icys while the robots do our work for us
Speaker 4: and get paid dividends. What do you think about that
Speaker 4: kind of future? And I especially wonder about cryptocurrencies being used,
Speaker 4: because machines will have to work with machines and transact.
Speaker 4: And this was the idea that we were kind of
Speaker 4: sold on at the birth of bitcoin. But is there
Speaker 4: any is there anything that's not science fiction to that idea?
Speaker 3: Well, I could tell you what we're doing is definitely
Speaker 3: not science fiction. It's actually very practical and applied, and
Speaker 3: it's it's giving a great success uh to our employees,
Speaker 3: and it's also benefiting our customers very directly. Right. So
Speaker 3: the I love that, Carol, I love that the the
Speaker 3: the idea. I'm gonna go jump back to Star Wars
Speaker 3: for for a minute if you guys want to geek
Speaker 3: out for me for a second. If you remember, we
Speaker 3: have a long young Luke Skywalker. Uh not even the
Speaker 3: he didn't even know he had the Jedi force and
Speaker 3: he was out when he met R two D two
Speaker 3: n C three p oo. He was actually going uh
Speaker 3: to get farming equipment. R two D two and C
Speaker 3: three PO were meant to be farming aids to help him.
Speaker 3: Even in our science fiction.
Speaker 4: In that by the Sand people remember ye.
Speaker 3: Well, next thing you know, you know, he meets the
Speaker 3: two of them and he's he's a Jedi. That's not
Speaker 3: too bad.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I have my own feelings about C three PO. I
Speaker 3: mean C three PO needs to step up their game
Speaker 3: a little bit, but say that.
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