Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg's Thomas Black He
Speaker 1: recently wrote in an opinion piece and he talked about
Speaker 1: the hype around humanoid robots being pretty i with forecasts
Speaker 1: of nearly one billion humanoids in service by twenty fifty,
Speaker 1: but the reality is that most people overestimate what robots
Speaker 1: can do at this point in their development. Got to say, though,
Speaker 1: one company that's been using robots a lot and for
Speaker 1: a long time and has deployed its one millionth robot
Speaker 1: happens to be one of the world's largest marketcat companies
Speaker 1: out there. It's also a household name. So we wanted
Speaker 1: to check in once again with Ty Brady. He is
Speaker 1: chief technologist at Amazon Robotics. He joins us from Amazon's
Speaker 1: Delivering the Future twenty twenty five event from Amazon's dur three.
Speaker 1: It's a delivery station in Millipedes, California, and so we
Speaker 1: kind of want to find out where they are in
Speaker 1: terms of the world of robotics. Ty, I gotta tell you, Tim,
Speaker 1: and I love talking to you last time, so so
Speaker 1: glad to check in with you again. First of all,
Speaker 1: this event, where you are I mean right now, I
Speaker 1: just see a curtain, but I'm assuming there's lots of
Speaker 1: stuff happening at the event. Who's there, what's going on?
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about it?
Speaker 2: Yep. Well, first of all, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: having me, and I really appreciate it, and I enjoyed
Speaker 2: our conversation as well. It's just really great to be here.
Speaker 2: We are fourth delivering the Future event here and there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of press that we have here, and we
Speaker 2: made a couple of big announcements in robotics set today.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about them if you have.
Speaker 2: But the first is in our manipulation. About that we
Speaker 2: call blue Jay, and what blue Jay? The way that
Speaker 2: you can think of that as we can you can
Speaker 2: take three assembly lines and put it in the same
Speaker 2: footprint of one. What it does is help eliminate the menial,
Speaker 2: the mundane, and the repetitive, and it could pick more
Speaker 2: than seventy five percent of the inventory that we actually
Speaker 2: sell in our sortable network, which is a really big deal.
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of that. And I also say there's
Speaker 2: just something interesting about blue Jay as well as compared
Speaker 2: to our other bird manipulation systems, Cardinal Sparrow and Robin
Speaker 2: it took us about three years to kind of design, deploy,
Speaker 2: and get out to our frontline employees. We have actually
Speaker 2: done blue Jay with the power of AI in just
Speaker 2: over a year. So it's really the pace of innovation.
Speaker 3: I think one a lot of people think about Amazon
Speaker 3: and robots, I just want to jump in because we
Speaker 3: don't have a ton of time, but I have that
Speaker 3: I want we'll get to some of the other announcements.
Speaker 3: They think about the Kiva Systems robots, the big acquisition
Speaker 3: at the time, you know, twenty twelve, that was a
Speaker 3: big acquisition for Amazon, and they've seen pictures of the
Speaker 3: way that those can move large loads of things across warehouses.
Speaker 3: But if you were to go into a state of
Speaker 3: the art Amazon warehouse today, what would you see That's
Speaker 3: in addition to those Kiva robots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in addition to the world's first goods to person
Speaker 2: fulfillment strategy, which was just a really good idea where
Speaker 2: we have more than a million robots that we manufacture
Speaker 2: action in Massachusetts doing that job every day. You're going
Speaker 2: to see more of the unstructured fields, right, So you're
Speaker 2: going to see green robot that we call Proteus that
Speaker 2: can move big cargoes of packages to the right dock
Speaker 2: at the right time. You're going to see many more
Speaker 2: manipulation systems that they we have in there, eliminating the
Speaker 2: kind of the repetitive motions that they we have. No
Speaker 2: one wants to lift a fifty pounds box box all day.
Speaker 2: Robin does that, Cardinal does that. Moving into some of
Speaker 2: these proteus bound krts that we have, you're going to
Speaker 2: see much more collaborative robotics.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So that's where we build our robotic systems to enable
Speaker 2: people to augment what people are capable of. And we
Speaker 2: really believe in the philosophy of people and machines working together.
Speaker 2: How can we build a tool set that enables our
Speaker 2: employees to do their job not only more efficiently, but
Speaker 2: also with better safety in mind?
Speaker 1: All right, So there's this robot arm called blue Jay.
Speaker 1: You just talked about it. You know, you guys are
Speaker 1: using this AI agent called the Iluna, and then you're
Speaker 1: also working with augmented reality glasses to be worn by
Speaker 1: drivers and delivery trucks in the field. There's like so
Speaker 1: much going on. Step back for a moment, because you
Speaker 1: guys have a lot of data. You look at what
Speaker 1: you're doing. I'm just curious investors who are thinking about
Speaker 1: Amazon and what you are doing. How do they think
Speaker 1: about the long term, like ROI return on investment when
Speaker 1: it comes to the investments you guys make in robots.
Speaker 1: Is the goal about labor efficiency, through put speed or
Speaker 1: is it margin expansion kind of tie across your fulfillment operations?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, definitely efficiency. We think about efficiencies and how
Speaker 2: can we gain efficiency through all the chain of our
Speaker 2: fulfillment processes for sure, And you mentioned data and data
Speaker 2: is the fuel for AI systems. Data has allowed us
Speaker 2: to bring think of the body of being our robotics,
Speaker 2: but bring the mind to robotics, allowing it to be
Speaker 2: more adaptable, more fluid. You can almost think of this
Speaker 2: as the ability to pour our robotics systems into any
Speaker 2: size building, any scale of building, to amplify what our
Speaker 2: employees are already doing. We want to give them an
Speaker 2: amazing tool set, and we see that when we do that,
Speaker 2: we're more productive. Right when you do robotics, Right when
Speaker 2: you do collab of robotics where you need both people
Speaker 2: and machines doing what they do best and they do
Speaker 2: different things better, That it allows you to be more productive,
Speaker 2: and when you're more productive, that allows you to invest
Speaker 2: more in people. We've skilled more than seven hundred thousand
Speaker 2: of our employees, which is a great stat And also
Speaker 2: in our robotics, we've expanded from the Kiva days, We've
Speaker 2: expanded from just a movement solution to now movement and
Speaker 2: mobility and sortation and storage and perception systems, packing systems
Speaker 2: that have really changed the game for our customers. That's
Speaker 2: a big deal to us. What ty.
Speaker 1: Well, you need less workers and I got to bring
Speaker 1: it up. You know, The Times had a story out.
Speaker 1: They talked about interviews and a cash of internal struts
Speaker 1: documents that they saw that it reveals that your execs
Speaker 1: think that the company's on the cusp of its next
Speaker 1: big workplace shift. I'm reading from the Times and replacing
Speaker 1: more than half a million jobs with robots, so you know,
Speaker 1: we know things change. I'm not in a horse and
Speaker 1: buggy anymore. I don't make things piecemeal. I get it.
Speaker 1: I don't get tons of faxes and I don't get
Speaker 1: tons of pieces of physical mail. Thank god. Things change.
Speaker 1: Having said that, is Amazon, do you guys believe that
Speaker 1: you're on the cusp of a workplace shift and that
Speaker 1: you won't need as many workers because the advancements in robotics.
Speaker 2: Well, there's no doubt that things change. I mean, and
Speaker 2: we're actually really proud of that day. And Amazon is
Speaker 2: that we avoid stasis at all costs. We change and
Speaker 2: we adapt and the nature of tasks definitely changed. There's
Speaker 2: no doubt about that. We are laser focused on efficiencies
Speaker 2: inside of our buildings. But when it comes to that article,
Speaker 2: that article was speculating ten years out right, that's a
Speaker 2: ten year speculation, and it's it's hard to say what's
Speaker 2: going to happen in the next ten years. But I
Speaker 2: can tell you what happened in the last ten years,
Speaker 2: the last ten years, which is when we seriously invested
Speaker 2: in robotics, that we created hundreds of thousands of new
Speaker 2: jobs and new job types. And there's been no employer
Speaker 2: in the United States that has employed more people than
Speaker 2: Amazon in ten years. I mean, that's and that's the
Speaker 2: power of efficiencies and building your robots in way that's
Speaker 2: applied and real that actually augments the human potential.
Speaker 1: All Right, my brother say, I'm like a dog with
Speaker 1: a bone. Wait, so does that mean ten years out.
Speaker 1: It could be less jobs or we just don't know,
Speaker 1: or you don't think that's the case.
Speaker 2: Well you have to think about I mean, there's jobs
Speaker 2: and there's tasks, right, so we of course we're changing
Speaker 2: the nature of tasks. Like I'm very bullish on eliminating
Speaker 2: every menial, mundane and repetitive job out there. Nobody wants
Speaker 2: to do that. So we were going to change those
Speaker 2: tasks one hundred percent. But we can again, as history
Speaker 2: has shown, we continue to create jobs, right with the
Speaker 2: goal of two things. Can you have it all? Can
Speaker 2: you be more productive which means more efficiency, and can
Speaker 2: you also create a safer environment for employees? And we're
Speaker 2: actually doing both. That's what history has shown. In the
Speaker 2: last ten years. We have created better than thirty percent
Speaker 2: reduction in our overall recordable injury rate over the last
Speaker 2: five years because of our robotics and also much more efficient.
Speaker 2: For example, our latest generation filment center in shreport is
Speaker 2: twenty five percent more efficient the order. So you can
Speaker 2: have it all, but you have to build your robotics
Speaker 2: in the right way that empowers people.
Speaker 3: We're speaking with Ty Brady, chief technologist at Amazon Robotics.
Speaker 3: When we think about hiring for these one off or
Speaker 3: seasonal events like the holiday season, our Amazon Prime Day.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering how you're putting pencil to paper right now
Speaker 3: and thinking about those numbers and to what extent automation
Speaker 3: has read deduced Amazon's dependency on seasonal or hourly labor
Speaker 3: for holidays, for Prime Day. What does that look like
Speaker 3: or what will that look like this year next year?
Speaker 2: Well, it's the same philosophy of empowering employees, whether they're
Speaker 2: temporary or the full time employees with the world's best
Speaker 2: machines that help them do their job. It's the same philosophy.
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of the fact that this year we're
Speaker 2: going to offer more than two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: temporary jobs for our employees to come in during the
Speaker 2: holiday season. Those are good paying jobs. I'm really happy
Speaker 2: about that, really pleased with that. And I'm really pleased
Speaker 2: with the work that our women and men have done
Speaker 2: in the robotics field designing the pioneering these new physical
Speaker 2: AI systems that help them do their jobs better.
Speaker 1: I got to say, one thing that I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about is what's going on overseas, whether it's China,
Speaker 1: whether it's Japan. Bloomberg has done some reporting about service
Speaker 1: industries in Japan because they have a labor shortage that
Speaker 1: they are leading increasingly on robotics. Have you been over
Speaker 1: there and looking at what they're doing, and I'm just
Speaker 1: cures if you're seeing some things that are pretty impressive
Speaker 1: and that the US as a creator of things or
Speaker 1: its role in the robotics industry, has to keep a
Speaker 1: watch on what's going on in other countries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's easy, especially in robotics, to get
Speaker 2: distracted about, you know, what other people are doing. I
Speaker 2: think anybody can make a YouTube video. I think anybody
Speaker 2: can kind of you pop in and overflate something. But
Speaker 2: if you come into our world, our world is all
Speaker 2: about application. Our world is the reality, all right.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Ty Brady, chief technologist robotics at Amazon.
Speaker 1: Of course our shot FROs. That's the world of technology.
Speaker 1: We're talking a lot about technology. Stuff happens, and we're
Speaker 1: hoping we can get tied back just to finish up
Speaker 1: this conversation.
Speaker 3: Maybe the robots are using all the Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: Robots, Like, I don't like what it is that is
Speaker 1: a connectivity thing though, Well, fees into the past, right
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 3: All passion about resources?
Speaker 1: Yeah, charge these puppies. Can't just plug them in right
Speaker 1: if there? I don't know.
Speaker 3: We need recharging too.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it's called food and sleep. Yeah, for Tim,
Speaker 1: it's called food, food and sleep.
Speaker 3: You know what I will say?
Speaker 1: Do we have tie back? Can we grab them for
Speaker 1: twenty seconds? Tye, twenty seconds forgive us your final thoughts here?
Speaker 2: Sorry about that.
Speaker 1: No, it's okay, let it go.
Speaker 2: I'm ready for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, twenty seconds, just final thoughts for our audience because
Speaker 1: we got to run.
Speaker 2: So final thoughts are is that robotics, when done the
Speaker 2: right way, when you reframe your relationship with machines, you
Speaker 2: can enable more productivity, create greater efficiencies, and create a
Speaker 2: more safer environment for employees. And this collaborative mindset that
Speaker 2: we've had, that we've done for the last ten years
Speaker 2: really does make the day.
Speaker 1: Ty Brady over at Amazon, so appreciate it.