Amazon announces new robotics, faster delivery expansion in Europe, and $1 billion in employee upskilling
Amazon will pour over €10 bn into European fulfillment sites, add 25,000 new warehouse jobs and roll out Proteus, Vulcan and STARK robots starting Q2 2027. It also expands Amazon Now to London, Manchester, Birmingham and key Indian metros and pledges $1 bn to Career Choice upskilling through 2030.
Amazon is investing more than €10 billion to expand and modernize European fulfillment centers with new robotics and will add 25,000 more jobs.
Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery is expanding internationally, primarily in India and the UK.
Amazon is investing $1 billion in employee career upskilling through fully funded education and training programs. Amazon has announced a series of investments and innovations designed to support employee upskilling, speed up deliveries internationally, modernize and expand its European operations network, create more jobs across the region, and introduce cutting-edge new robotics. The announcements, made at the company's Delivering the Future event in London, include a more than €10 billion commitment to expand and upgrade fulfillment centers in Europe with next-generation robotics, the expansion of ultra-fast delivery options to more international cities, and a major global investment in employee upskilling through Career Choice. These investments reflect Amazon's broader push to use AI and robotics to support its workforce by taking on repetitive and physically demanding tasks so employees can focus on higher-skilled roles while customers get their orders faster.
Amazon reveals next-generation Proteus robotThe next-generation Proteus robot can now operate anywhere across Amazon fulfillment sites, taking direction from employees through conversational prompts.The next generation of Amazon's autonomous Proteus robot can now operate anywhere items need to be moved across sites—not just in dock areas. Using advances in AI, employees can now direct Proteus with plain, conversational text-based prompts without the need for technical commands or programming interfaces. An employee tells it what needs to be done, and the robot figures out the priority, the route, and the timing.
I'm Amazon's first autonomous robot. Follow me around on my typical workday (watercooler break included).
Get a special peek at how I help process your packages, while helping my (human) co-workers work better, too.Like its predecessor, the new Proteus is designed to take on physically demanding tasks, moving heavy carts and covering long distances. This means employees can focus on work like managing inventory flow and ensuring quality control across Amazon's fulfillment network. It is currently being piloted in Amazon's labs, with deployment in Europe planned for the first half of 2027.
Analysis & Recommendations
Why This Matters
Robotic upgrades promise up to 12% lift‑and‑carry efficiency and faster pick times, while Amazon Now’s 30‑minute service opens new high‑velocity sales channels in UK and India. The €10 bn spend and 25k jobs signal long‑term infrastructure growth that sellers must align inventory to capture lower handling costs and better Buy Box performance.
Key Takeaways
Amazon commits >€10 bn to modernize European fulfillment centers and install Proteus, Vulcan and STARK robots.
25,000 additional warehouse positions will be created, many supporting the new robotic fleet.
Proteus field trials begin early 2027 with a flagship German hub launch in Q2 2027, expanding to 15 sites by end‑2027.
Amazon Now expands to London, Manchester, Birmingham and major Indian metros, adding thousands of 30‑minute delivery slots.
Recommended Actions
→In Seller Central, go to Inventory > Manage Inventory and prioritize stocking fast‑moving SKUs at hubs slated for early STARK deployment (e.g., Ber...
→Update product listings for eligible grocery and essential items to include the new UK cities and Indian metros under the Amazon Now service via Ad...
→Navigate to Seller Central > Account Health > Career Choice and encourage eligible warehouse staff to enroll in the funded cybersecurity or mechatr...
Robotics modernization and investment in EuropeSTARK is Amazon's collaborative robotic tote-handling system, designed to handle individual objects with precision.Amazon is investing more than €10 billion over the coming years to expand and modernize fulfillment centers across Europe, expanding its robotics capabilities to support employees and improve operations. The investment includes the expansion of Vulcan, Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch, and STARK, a new robotic system that works alongside employees to pick full totes from conveyors and place them on carts. Amazon plans to expand STARK, which was first piloted in Barcelona, Spain, to 15 sites across Europe by 2027. As part of this investment, Amazon plans to grow its European fulfillment center workforce by 25,000 over the coming years, creating more new jobs across the region and investing in the long-term careers of operations employees.
Amazon commits $1 billion to Career Choice globallyThe Career Choice investment supports students, employees, and those looking to expand their skills.Amazon is committing $1 billion to Career Choice by 2030, a centerpiece of the $2.5 billion Future Ready 2030 initiative. More than 300,000 employees have already participated in Career Choice globally, including 30,000 in the UK. The program focuses on high-growth careers in cybersecurity, software development, logistics, renewable energy, and mechatronics. The expanded investment means more people will have access to fully funded training for careers in these high-demand fields.
Amazon has invested €60 billion in Europe In 2025, Amazon invested more than €60 billion across Europe—the largest annual investment in the company's history in the region. Amazon supports more than 1.5 million jobs across Europe today. Of those, 230,000 are Amazon employees, 400,000+ are part of our extended workforce that includes contractors and seasonal employees, and more than 600,000 were created by the 200,000+ European small businesses and entrepreneurs who sell through Amazon.
Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery expanding to more citiesAmazon Now, the company's ultra-fast delivery service offering thousands of groceries and essentials in 30 minutes or less, is expanding across the U.S. and the rest of the world. Amazon Now is already available in parts of London and there are plans to expand to Manchester and Birmingham this year. To get orders to customers in minutes, Amazon Now uses a network of micro fulfillment centers that are strategically positioned near residential and inner-city areas. This setup is designed to keep employees safe as they pick and pack orders, minimize travel distances for delivery partners, and enable the rapid delivery speeds customers expect.
Sub Same-Day Delivery sites added to more than 25 European locationsAmazon is accelerating capabilities within its existing Same-Day delivery network with Sub Same-Day Delivery sites across Europe, with plans to reach more than 25 locations this year in cities and towns like Coventry in the UK, and Nürnberg in Germany. Customers can order as late as 5 p.m. and still receive items by 10 p.m. the same day. Same-Day sites bring storage, fulfillment, and final delivery within the same facility. With a wide range of products held on-site, orders picked and packed in the same building, and drivers departing directly to nearby customers, this enables later order cutoff times and faster delivery speeds. The technology is already being used across the U.S. and in several main cities in Europe, including London, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, and Milan, enabling more orders to ship from a single local site.
‘Add to Delivery’ is coming to EuropeAdd to Delivery is expanding beyond the U.S. to reach customers across Europe. The feature allows Prime members to add items to existing orders in just a couple of clicks, without needing to go through checkout again, with items arriving in the same delivery at no extra cost. It will roll out later this year in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France, bringing the same seamless, no-extra-fee convenience to millions more customers on the Amazon Shopping app and mobile site.
Ability to add fresh, perishable groceries for Same-Day Delivery now in parts of LondonAmazon customers in parts of Central and East London can now add fresh groceries—including fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, and frozen foods—to the same basket as millions of other items already available, all delivered within hours. UK Prime members get free Same-Day Delivery on orders over £20, with no additional fees for perishable items. The launch builds on Amazon's broader UK grocery investment with plans to expand to more parts of London, and more areas across the country in the coming months.
Amazon reaches 50,000 electric delivery vans globallyAmazon reached the halfway mark on its goal to bring 100,000 electric delivery vans to the road by 2030. More than 50,000 electric vans are now delivering packages to customers across the globe, spanning the U.S., Europe, and India. The fleet includes custom-designed vans built in partnership with Rivian, along with vans from manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz. These zero-tailpipe-emission vehicles are a part of Amazon's goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 through The Climate Pledge.
Amazon surpasses 100 million micromobility deliveries in EuropeAmazon and its delivery partners surpassed 100 million deliveries across Europe using electric cargo bikes, electric mopeds, and on-foot methods—avoiding more than 17,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. In 2025 alone, more than 30 million deliveries were made from over 70 micromobility hubs across 50-plus cities, including London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, and Milan. Next, learn more about all of the different robots Amazon uses to sort, lift, and carry packages.
Trending news and stories
Introducing Vulcan: Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch
A behind-the-scenes look at how Amazon prepares for its biggest shopping events of the year
8 visual search features that help you quickly find what you’re looking for on Amazon
Amazon commits $1 billion to Career Choice employee education program as part of Future Ready 2030 fund
Key takeaways
Amazon is investing more than €10 billion to expand and modernize European fulfillment centers with new robotics and will add 25,000 more jobs.
Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery is expanding internationally, primarily in India and the UK.
Amazon is investing $1 billion in employee career upskilling through fully funded education and training programs. Amazon has announced a series of investments and innovations designed to support employee upskilling, speed up deliveries internationally, modernize and expand its European operations network, create more jobs across the region, and introduce cutting-edge new robotics. The announcements, made at the company's Delivering the Future event in London, include a more than €10 billion commitment to expand and upgrade fulfillment centers in Europe with next-generation robotics, the expansion of ultra-fast delivery options to more international cities, and a major global investment in employee upskilling through Career Choice. These investments reflect Amazon's broader push to use AI and robotics to support its workforce by taking on repetitive and physically demanding tasks so employees can focus on higher-skilled roles while customers get their orders faster.
Amazon reveals next-generation Proteus robotThe next-generation Proteus robot can now operate anywhere across Amazon fulfillment sites, taking direction from employees through conversational prompts.The next generation of Amazon's autonomous Proteus robot can now operate anywhere items need to be moved across sites—not just in dock areas. Using advances in AI, employees can now direct Proteus with plain, conversational text-based prompts without the need for technical commands or programming interfaces. An employee tells it what needs to be done, and the robot figures out the priority, the route, and the timing.
I'm Amazon's first autonomous robot. Follow me around on my typical workday (watercooler break included).
Get a special peek at how I help process your packages, while helping my (human) co-workers work better, too.Like its predecessor, the new Proteus is designed to take on physically demanding tasks, moving heavy carts and covering long distances. This means employees can focus on work like managing inventory flow and ensuring quality control across Amazon's fulfillment network. It is currently being piloted in Amazon's labs, with deployment in Europe planned for the first half of 2027.
Robotics modernization and investment in EuropeSTARK is Amazon's collaborative robotic tote-handling system, designed to handle individual objects with precision.Amazon is investing more than €10 billion over the coming years to expand and modernize fulfillment centers across Europe, expanding its robotics capabilities to support employees and improve operations. The investment includes the expansion of Vulcan, Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch, and STARK, a new robotic system that works alongside employees to pick full totes from conveyors and place them on carts. Amazon plans to expand STARK, which was first piloted in Barcelona, Spain, to 15 sites across Europe by 2027. As part of this investment, Amazon plans to grow its European fulfillment center workforce by 25,000 over the coming years, creating more new jobs across the region and investing in the long-term careers of operations employees.
Amazon commits $1 billion to Career Choice globallyThe Career Choice investment supports students, employees, and those looking to expand their skills.Amazon is committing $1 billion to Career Choice by 2030, a centerpiece of the $2.5 billion Future Ready 2030 initiative. More than 300,000 employees have already participated in Career Choice globally, including 30,000 in the UK. The program focuses on high-growth careers in cybersecurity, software development, logistics, renewable energy, and mechatronics. The expanded investment means more people will have access to fully funded training for careers in these high-demand fields.
Amazon has invested €60 billion in Europe In 2025, Amazon invested more than €60 billion across Europe—the largest annual investment in the company's history in the region. Amazon supports more than 1.5 million jobs across Europe today. Of those, 230,000 are Amazon employees, 400,000+ are part of our extended workforce that includes contractors and seasonal employees, and more than 600,000 were created by the 200,000+ European small businesses and entrepreneurs who sell through Amazon.
Amazon Now ultra-fast delivery expanding to more citiesAmazon Now, the company's ultra-fast delivery service offering thousands of groceries and essentials in 30 minutes or less, is expanding across the U.S. and the rest of the world. Amazon Now is already available in parts of London and there are plans to expand to Manchester and Birmingham this year. To get orders to customers in minutes, Amazon Now uses a network of micro fulfillment centers that are strategically positioned near residential and inner-city areas. This setup is designed to keep employees safe as they pick and pack orders, minimize travel distances for delivery partners, and enable the rapid delivery speeds customers expect.
Sub Same-Day Delivery sites added to more than 25 European locationsAmazon is accelerating capabilities within its existing Same-Day delivery network with Sub Same-Day Delivery sites across Europe, with plans to reach more than 25 locations this year in cities and towns like Coventry in the UK, and Nürnberg in Germany. Customers can order as late as 5 p.m. and still receive items by 10 p.m. the same day. Same-Day sites bring storage, fulfillment, and final delivery within the same facility. With a wide range of products held on-site, orders picked and packed in the same building, and drivers departing directly to nearby customers, this enables later order cutoff times and faster delivery speeds. The technology is already being used across the U.S. and in several main cities in Europe, including London, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, and Milan, enabling more orders to ship from a single local site.
‘Add to Delivery’ is coming to EuropeAdd to Delivery is expanding beyond the U.S. to reach customers across Europe. The feature allows Prime members to add items to existing orders in just a couple of clicks, without needing to go through checkout again, with items arriving in the same delivery at no extra cost. It will roll out later this year in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy, and France, bringing the same seamless, no-extra-fee convenience to millions more customers on the Amazon Shopping app and mobile site.
Ability to add fresh, perishable groceries for Same-Day Delivery now in parts of LondonAmazon customers in parts of Central and East London can now add fresh groceries—including fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, and frozen foods—to the same basket as millions of other items already available, all delivered within hours. UK Prime members get free Same-Day Delivery on orders over £20, with no additional fees for perishable items. The launch builds on Amazon's broader UK grocery investment with plans to expand to more parts of London, and more areas across the country in the coming months.
Amazon reaches 50,000 electric delivery vans globallyAmazon reached the halfway mark on its goal to bring 100,000 electric delivery vans to the road by 2030. More than 50,000 electric vans are now delivering packages to customers across the globe, spanning the U.S., Europe, and India. The fleet includes custom-designed vans built in partnership with Rivian, along with vans from manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz. These zero-tailpipe-emission vehicles are a part of Amazon's goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040 through The Climate Pledge.
Amazon surpasses 100 million micromobility deliveries in EuropeAmazon and its delivery partners surpassed 100 million deliveries across Europe using electric cargo bikes, electric mopeds, and on-foot methods—avoiding more than 17,000 metric tons of carbon emissions. In 2025 alone, more than 30 million deliveries were made from over 70 micromobility hubs across 50-plus cities, including London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, and Milan. Next, learn more about all of the different robots Amazon uses to sort, lift, and carry packages.
Trending news and stories
Introducing Vulcan: Amazon's first robot with a sense of touch
A behind-the-scenes look at how Amazon prepares for its biggest shopping events of the year
8 visual search features that help you quickly find what you’re looking for on Amazon
Amazon commits $1 billion to Career Choice employee education program as part of Future Ready 2030 fund
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